


i;;;; J 






PUBLIC SPEAKING 

AND DEBATE. 

By G. J. HOLYOAKE, 

\ ft 

AUTHOR OF " LOGIC OF FACTS," ETC. 



WITH AN ESSAY ON SACRED ELOQUENCE, 

By HENRY ROGERS. 



/ 2~ X 



i 

REVISED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, 

By L. D. BARROWS, D.D. 



Common sense is the genius of humanity.— Gutzot. 



SECOND EDITION, IMPROVED AND ENLARGED. 



3Stm ffiork: 
PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

200 MULBERRY-STREET. 

3 % i 1863 ' m~~* sWk 



INDEX 



+•+ 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 5 

PROEM It 

PUBLIC SPEAKING 23 

EDITORIAL NOTES 167 

SACRED ELOQUENCE : BRITISH PULPIT 183 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— DERIVATIVE POWERS. 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I. Rhetoric 23 

IT. Delivery 27 

III. Persuasion '. 35 

IV. Method 44 

V. Discipline 59 

VI. Tact 65 

PART H.— ACQUIRED POWERS. 

VII. Originality 73 

VIII. Heroism * 77 

IX. Proportion 80 

X. Style 83 

XI. Similes 90 

XII. Pleasantry 95 

XIII. Energy 97 

XIV. Eloquence 100 

XV. Premeditation 105 

XVI. Reality 109 

XVII. Effectiveness 113 

XVIII. Mastery 121 

PART III.— APPLIED POWERS. 

XIX. Criticism 127 

XX. Debate 130 

XXI. Personalities 139 

XXII. Questioning 153 

XXIII. Repetition 155 

XXIV. Poetry 157 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is a question of the first importance to all public speakers, 
especially ministers of the Gospel, how their utterances can be 
rendered the most effectual. Whatever promises aid in this 
direction will be seized with earnestness and appropriated with 
care. 

It has become obvious to careful observers that the modern 
pulpit is more distinguished for strong ability, sound learning, 
and deep piety than for its eloquence. Since it is true of the 
thousands now annually entering the ministry, so few are 
remarkable for their power and success as speakers who are 
distinguished scholars and writers, their study and training for 
speaking are either greatly neglected or fearfully misdirected. 
The numerous text-books on rhetoric, in every liberal course* of 
study, with the corresponding professorships and hebdomadal 
declamations, do not indicate a neglect of this branch of educa- 
tion. "We therefore conclude, that by some means its cultiva- 
tion lias become sadly defective. 

Public speaking, and even rhetoric, as taught and practiced 
of late among students and young speakers, have fallen into 
great abuses. They are exceedingly superficial. The very 
name of rhetoric strikes one now as implying little or nothing 
more than a painting, or outside adorning of discourse, adding 
a little flippancy to please the unthoughtful. It is supposed to 
imply something showy and trifling, rather than substantial and 
excellent. In a thorough course of study, and with good schol- 
ars, it does not seem to be generally regarded as an element of 
power, like that of logic and philosophy, but a kind of educa- 
tional plaything. Hence no moral quality is attached to its 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

study or practice, nor is it coveted as among " the best gifts " 
so much for what it has power to accomplish, as for what it 
appears to be. 

Because rhetoric deals so much in forms, it does not follow 
that it is destitute of principles, and that its foundations do not 
lie deeper than the drapery of spoken or written discourse. If 
novices and sophomores treat the powers of oratory as a toy, 
upright and conscientious speakers should regard it as involving 
a moral responsibility, such as always accompanies all great 
powers. 

Sacred eloquence especially should be studied and practiced 
from another standpoint, high, pure, and commanding, like 
itself, or it will never occupy its true relative position in a 
course of education. If eloquence in its true character and pur- 
poses does not originate in moral emotions, if it does not deal 
with the moral element of humanity, if it does not propose moral 
achievements, we cannot affirm what other branch of science or 
education does. By what authority then has it been brought 
down, shorn of its inherent merit, and degraded in scholastic 
estimation ? If it has sometimes been used improperly, to influ- 
ence men against their judgments and interests, that does not 
show its nature and designs are such, any more than the per- 
version of any other science shows it useless or vicious. But, 
on the other hand, we claim that there is not in all the wide 
range of education any other department that leads us so 
directly into, and takes such a firm hold upon, the highest ele- 
ments of our nature, and influences so powerfully the great 
interests of humanity, as this. Benevolence and religion covet 
power to do good; and with men possessed of these qualities, 
all power will be used exclusively for that purpose, and with 
this view will.be earnestly sought. 

We are confirmed in the opinion that the essential qualities 
of good speaking are not correctly taught generally in modern 
training for that purpose, from the fact that of those who have 
studied the most carefully, written the most extensively, and 



INTKODUCTION. 7 

taught the longest, there are found scarcely more really eloquent 
speakers, in proportion to their number, than of the uneducated. 
This, however, by no means indicates that this branch of educa- 
tion is not to be elaborately studied, provided it is under the 
right masters, and in a successful manner. Cudworth says: 
"Knowledge is not to be poured into the soul like liquor, but 
rather to be invited and gently drawn forth from it ; nor the 
mind so much to be filled therewith from without like a vessel, 
as to be kindled and awakened. 1 ' 1 The application of this fine 
thought to our modern teaching of oratory would be of decided 
advantage. 

Let us inquire if there are not in operation several causes, 
forestalling or undermining to a great extent everything that 
is now done to improve our public speaking. One formidable 
obstacle in the way of general success in improving pulpit ora- 
tory is the force of precedent, and the fear of breaking away 
from established style. In the ministry of every Christian 
Church there is a way, or manner, which, if it does not amount 
to a tone, does to a style, and this must more or less fashion 
every man's mode of speaking in the ministry. If the individ- 
ual speaker does not wish it should be so, his associations, with 
the power of habit, will make it so, unconsciously it may be 
to himself. Provided he does not feel that his denominational 
reputation depends on his following the beaten track of style 
and mannerisms, he will not be above the fear of being thought 
odd or singular in breaking away from usage. The result is, 
no matter what a man's natural utterance, he will be to some 
extent squared to these lines, which so far makes him unnatural. 
"Who ever was or ever can be eloquent who is not natural? 
The least constraint is perceptible to an audience and crippling 
to a speaker. The bar and the stage are comparatively free 
from this incubus which weighs upon the pulpit. Speakers 
must be natural or they are repulsive. The naturalness compre- 
hends alike tone, or modulation of voice, position of the body, 
and gesticulation. A practical observer will detect the least 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

affectation in any one of these particulars. Here lies the danger 
in all anxious and critical study of eloquence — its continual 
tendency to interfere with nature, except when taught by mas- 
ters of the subject. When this occurs, it is mainly to be attrib- 
uted to the direction of the speaker's attention to wrong points. 
The young orator resolves to excel, so he speaks and acts as 
much like an eloquent man as possible, drops everything natural, 
puts on airs, assumes the gestures and tones of voice which he 
has observed as pleasing in others, and calls it a success ! A 
burlesque of eloquence. His efforts should be first to ascertain 
his own faults as a speaker. Is he too fast, too slow, too calm, 
too excited, too loud, too low, too argumentative, too superficial ? 
Having learned by some means what his faults are, he should 
remove them, no matter what the cost, or despair of success. 
This was the great effort of Demosthenes, and other great mas- 
ters of the art, who succeeded oy study. A short breath, a stam- 
mering tongue, or indistinct articulation were impediments to 
his eloquent nature, such as could be overcome only by the 
greatest painstaking. This is the point to which all public 
speakers can direct their attention safely and continually. But, 
alas ! almost any and everything else will be studied before this, 
which accounts largely for the surprising non-improvement in 
modern oratory. 

When from any cause ministers of the Gospel cease to feel a 
deep and thrilling interest in their own utterances, they are no 
longer eloquent. Then the most profound logic and finished 
rhetoric, though applied to the vital truths of Christianity, will 
fall dead upon an audience, for in hearing hearts answer only 
to hearts in spealcing. Without a vital interest of the speaker 
in what he says, his melodious voice will be like a sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal, and the people will sleep on. If a 
minister of Christ does not "grow in grace," and make con- 
tinual progress in personal and experimental religion; if he 
studies but superficially the great truths of Christianity; if his 
discourses are, with himself, old and stale; if his illustrations 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

are trite and worn ; if his attention is drawn off from the salva- 
tion of souls, while he preaches or studies to the securing of 
popular favor, or to his own livelihood ; if the great truths of 
God, eternity, and the soul are not deeply impressed on his 
mind, his own soul will grow less and less susceptible, and his 
speaking more and more ineffectual. When he becomes con- 
scious of this lack of feeling, his first expedient will be to raise 
his voice, throw about his hands, stamp with his foot, or smite 
with his fist; and thus, by a superabundance of sound and 
bluster, strive to atone for lack of thought or real feeling. 
Should this fail, he will probably start a torrent of exclama- 
tions, "O, my hearers!" " O, my brethren!" etc., repeated so 
frequently and with so little emotion that they become insipid. 
Such unmeaning phrases, and any sort of clap-trap, used to fill 
the blanks of thought and real emotion in a discourse, are ridic- 
ulous. They discover the nakedness of the land, and show the 
speaker anxious to be pathetic without the power to be so. The 
Greeks and Eomans made but little use of these empty sounds, 
or of the exclamation; neither have such strong and modern 
writers as Barrow, Sherlock, and Atterbury. Swift says he 
knew a man who, when he spied an exclamation point at the 
end of a sentence skipped the whole sentence. Those speakers 
might do the same who have to manufacture their feeling to 
order as they go along with 'their discourses. Exclamations, 
personifications, and apostrophes are dangerous in the hands of 
unskillful workmen, especially such speakers as attempt to warm 
their lips with words from frozen hearts. 

The forbearance and kindness of a pious people, and their 
reluctance to find fault with their ministers, we fear have con- 
tributed to a growing self-complacency among the clergy, and 
moreover to a false view of their real abilities. This doubtless 
has had considerable influence in producing the deficiency of the 
modern pulpit. We do not think it uncharitable to say, that 
with a large class of clergymen there is a sad deficiency in hard 
consecutive study; in profound. original thought; in a clear and 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

impressive apprehension of divine truth ; in a bold, comprehen- 
sive, and earnest diction ; in a fearless and manly energy, such 
as a Christian honesty inspires. But instead of this kind of 
pulpit attraction we have commonplace thoughts, tame and 
insipid illustrations, a hesitating and patronizing air of delivery, 
and apparent indifference to probable or possible results. Such 
public speaking as this is tolerated nowhere else but in the 
pulpit, and only tolerated there. Under its deadening influence 
the lawyer would lose his business, the political orator his 
audience, and the tragedian would be hissed from the stage. 
These feeble and forceless incumbents seem quite at ease if they 
have gained the doubtful compliment: "They are good men, 
though not great preachers." They should know that this is 
said often, more because nothing else can be said of them, or 
because this cannot be well disproved, than because they have 
any special goodness of character. 

The speaking of the pulpit, unlike that of the bar and ros- 
trum, does not furnish the speaker with the immediate and ocu- 
lar proofs of his success or failure. Hence his constant and 
imminent danger of deceiving himself, alike as to his success 
and real abilities. This has a tendency to satisfy him with 
ordinary efforts, and this cannot fail to make him an ordinary 
man. In ministerial qualifications goodness should surely be held 
as a sine qua non; but if the days of miracles are past, strength, 
both human and divine, is its right arm of power, now as of old. 

This state of things in the ministerial profession of the present 
age has had a tendency to invite into it a class of men who are 
too weak and powerless to get a living in any other way. In 
all other professions the incumbents must have some talent and 
vigorous application, or fail ; but a young man who has not tact 
or courage to badger a false witness, or extract a tooth, will do 
for a minister, for "he is a very good young man." By this 
means the eloquence of the pulpit is greatly marred. For a dis- 
course superficially studied, made up mostly of commonplace 
and stale thoughts, with dry and antiquated illustrations, no 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

man of sense can deliver with interest or enthusiasm to himself; 
and then he will fall into a dull, empty, and indifferent way of 
speaking — the tomb of all eloquence. But when the speaker 
feels he has elaborated something new, worthy of himself and 
his hearers, his eye kindles, his spirit rises, his soul is stirred, 
his voice adjusts itself to his thoughts, and then he has the 
people with him, and lo, he is pronounced an eloquent man! 
Non-progressive, unstudious, and unthinking clergymen are often 
if not generally monotonous in style. This is a common and 
ruinous feature in pulpit speaking. So little variations of the 
voice stupefy the hearers, and obscure the fine thoughts of the 
speaker, if he utters them. Says one writer : " The monotonous 
wearisome sound of a single bell might be almost as soon 
expected to excite moral impressions as the general tenor of 
our pulpit discourses, which are, with few exceptions, drowsily 
composed and drowsily delivered." 

On the other hand, some fall into the habit of a hurried and 
impetuous style of speaking. This, though less common, is 
hardly less disagreeable. It is frequently the result of embar- 
rassment or timidity. A fear of coming to a stop, or being 
unable to call up words rapidly enough, naturally creates hurry. 
This will often superinduce some trifling mistake, which is 
hastily corrected, increasing the hurry and confusion, till it 
becomes painful to both speaker and hearer. 

A desire also to be forcible or impressive tends to this impetu- 
osity of style. A rapid torrent of words is thought by some 
sufficient to carry away an audience, as the current sweeps all 
before it. An audience without brains, or heart, might possibly 
be thus overcome — not otherwise. 

A slight difficulty in the articulation of words, or sounds, 
serves to rush a speaker on as rapidly as possible ; and this, too, 
only augments the evil, as it suppresses, rather than develops the 
power to articulate. Practice, careful and continued, will soon 
furnish ability to overcome any such hesitancy in utterance. 
But such practice requires great deliberation in speaking. 



12 INTKODUCTION. 

Among the disadvantages of this manner of delivery are the 
following : it injures the organs of speech, and the health ; it 
is annoying to the hearers; it obscures the thoughts of the 
speaker by covering them over with a stream of words; it 
destroys the power of emphasis, by a constant exhaustion of 
breath and voice ; it bewilders the attention, and destroys the 
hearer's power of memory, and thus prevents lasting good 
results. 

To correct this injurious pulpit habit there should be thorough 
preparation to speak, which will inspire a perfect confidence of 
the speaker in his ability to proceed. Great care and sufficient 
time must be taken to enunciate fully and distinctly every word 
and sound. No long time in this careful practice will be 
required to obviate wholly the injurious habit of which we 
complain, provided the correction is undertaken with a truth- 
ful view of the existence and extent of the difficulty. Ko fault 
of delivery will be eradicated until the erring speaker feels his 
imperfection, and that particular imperfection, and determines 
it shall cease. 

The basis of delivery in preaching should be a dignified and 
earnest conversational tone ; and there should be no departure 
from it, except when strong excitement compels it. Let the 
clerical reader now cast his eye over the circle of his ministerial 
acquaintances, and ask himself how many of these would, and 
how many would not be improved by some change in this 
respect. There is generally too much volume of voice used, too 
loud and harsh. This diverts attention from the thought of 
discourse and deadens the feeling. This fault, though common 
and very detrimental, is easily remedied with care and perse- 
verance. It is said of Cicero, that before he went into Greece 
he had a rude and coarse voice ; but after remaining there for 
some time, by industry and force of habit he brought it to a 
charming smoothness and delicacy. 

The little attention paid to the voice, its tones and culture, 
by public speakers, is really surprising. In noticing other 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

speakers, nothing sooner attracts our attention than the voice. 
"We at once determine whether it is base, tenor, or soprano, as 
we do also whether it is agreeable or otherwise. The voice is 
not only susceptible of these essential qualities, but also of vari- 
ous gradations between them. Its flexibility and susceptibility 
of culture are almost incredible. It can express every emotion 
of the soul, and every degree of that emotion. More, it is 
almost sure to utter the speaker's soul whether he will or not ! 
It will not play him false, but may expose his hypocrisy if he 
has any. Such is the power of the human voice ; yet how few 
public speakers ever attempt in earnest to change their harsh 
and stupefying tones, tones which not unfrequently utterly ruin 
their efficiency as speakers ; men whose chief business, too, is 
speaking ! 

The base voice has great dignity, and is not at first repulsive, 
nor is it when occasionally used ; but it will soon grow heavy, 
and become monotonous, and when long continued it is sure to 
produce drowsiness. To listen for an hour to a sermon in a 
uniformly deep and heavy base voice, is about as entertaining 
as to listen as long to a solitary base singer. 

The tenor voice is the best adapted to public speaking, and 
hence should be cultivated by those whose voices are base or 
soprano, as all these tones can with ease be greatly modified. 
This tenor voice, occupying a middle position between the other 
two, plays up and down most readily. 

This tone is also more persuasive and sympathetic, a secret 
few understand and none can explain, yet an element of great 
power in a speaker. It has greater variety, and is less inclined 
to monotony. 

The highest voice is sharp and ungraceful. It is more liable 
to impair the organs of speech and health, and also to create 
uneasiness with the hearers. It approaches a scream when long 
continued. It can be used only occasionally with pleasure to 
the hearers, or with safety to the speaker, except where it is 
natural, and even then it is disagreeable to the ear. 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

Speakers cannot be too cautious in watching against bad 
habits until they are wholly removed. Yet it is possible to 
become so careful and anxious about the grammar, rhetoric, and 
pronunciation, and to allow the whole attention to be absorbed, 
so that the subject itself and the results of its delivery may 
be entirely forgotten. Many of our most learned and polished 
speakers, we judge, fall into this grave mistake. Impression and 
success are sacrificed to a cold exactness, to a dead orthodoxy. 
Eather than this, let them speak right on, in the fullness of their 
souls, trusting to the force of accurate habit of study and speak- 
ing; then the mind and feelings' will be unembarrassed, and 
free to enter directly and earnestly into the subject itself. The 
preacher must not be fastidiously solicitous, or elaborately nice 
in the arrangement of his sentences and in .the marshaling of 
periods; for, as Milton says, "True eloquence I find to be none 
but the serious and hearty love of truth ; and that whose mind 
soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know good 
things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of 
them into others, when such a man would speak, his words, 
like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at com- 
mand, and in well-ordered files, and as he would wish, fall aptly 
into their own places." Such speaking as this, with a tolerable 
accuracy and clearness of utterance, constitutes a manly and 
impressive eloquence, scorning the tricks of the stage, the buf- 
foonery of mountebanks, and the bombast of sophomores. 

The following brief quotations contain thoughts worth a per- 
manent place in all literature embracing sacred eloquence : 

" Oratory, as it consists in the expression of the countenance, 
graces of attitude and motion, and intonation of voice, although 
it is altogether superficial and ornamental, will always command 
admiration; yet it deserves little veneration. Flashes of wit, 
coruscations of imagination, and gay pictures ; what are they ? 
Strict truth, rapid reason, and pure integrity are the only essen- 
tial ingredients in oratory. I flatter myself that Demosthenes, 
by his action! action! action! meant to express the same 
opinion." — John Adams. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

" Clearness, force, and earnestness are qualities that produce 
conviction. True eloquence does not consist in speech. It can- 
not be brought from. far. Labor and learning may toil for it ; 
but they toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in 
every way ; but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the 
man, in the subject, in the occasion. Affected passion, intense 
expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, but 
they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the out- 
breaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of 
volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The 
graces taught in the schools, the courtly ornaments, studied 
contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own 
lives and the lives of their wives and children and their country 
hang on the decisions of an hour. Then words have lost their 
power; rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. 
Then even genius feels rebuked and subdued, as if in the pres- 
ence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent. The 
clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic; the high 
purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit speaking on the 
tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and 
urging the whole man onward — right onward to his object — 
this, this is eloquence, or rather it is something greater than 
eloquence ; it is ^ctiye, noble, sublime, and god-like action." — 
Unknown. (AMA^tAV* r * r 

" Ehetoric, as taught in the seminaries, and by itinerant elo- 
cutionists, is one thing; genuine, heart-thrilling, soul-stirring 
eloquence is a very different thing. The one is like the rose 
in the wax, without odor ; the other like the rose in its native 
bush, perfuming the atmosphere with its rich odor, distilled 
from the dew of heaven. The one is the finely finished statue 
of a Cicero or Demosthenes, more perfect in its lineaments 
than the original, pleasing the eye and entrapping the imagina- 
tion; the other is the living man, animated by intellectual 
power, rousing the deepest feelings of every heart, and electrify- 
ing every soul, as with vivid lightning. The one is a picture 
of the passions all on fire ; the other is the real conflagration, 
pouring out a volume of words that burn, like liquid flames 
bursting from the crater of a volcano. The one attracts the 
admiring gaze, and tickles the fancy of an audience ; the other 
sounds an alarm that vibrates through the tingling ears to the 



16 INTKODUCTION. 

soul, and sends back the rushing blood upon the aching heart ; 
the one fails, when strong commotion and angry elements agi- 
tate the public peace ; the other can ride upon the whirlwind, 

-Judson. 

"We have been induced to offer to the reading public a repub- 
lication of this volume, chiefly because we think it supplies a 
long-felt desideratum in the literature of public speakers, a kind 
of connecting link between the theory of rhetoric, as taught in 
our text-books, and the application or practice of it. In this 
most important aspect of this noble subject, we think the 
remarks of this author the most highly suggestive and pertinent 
of any we have ever read. In his sententious and terse style, 
he sparkles with thought and abounds with practical hints. He 
assumes from first to last what we think is true, that public 
speakers generally are more familiar with the rules of rhetoric 
than they are skillful in the application of them. Could our 
countless corps of public speakers be reached at this point 
and thoroughly roused, we might hope to see a much-needed 
improvement in public speaking. It will be noticed that the 
idioms, or forms of expression, are not all modern, nor exactly 
American. Many not such, however, have been changed : but 
some are left as we found them, where a severe literary taste 
would seem to require change, fearing we might lessen or mar 
the author's thought by introducing our own phraseology. 

The careful reader will observe that in what we have said in 
this Introduction, and in the Notes, together with the valuable 
essay of Henry Eogers in the appendix, we have aimed at pro- 
ducing a book worthy of the attention of clergymen, and such 
as we think is adapted to promote the efficiency of the pulpit. 
And if our clerical readers can read this little work as many 
times as we have, with unflagging interest, they will not regret 

that it has fallen into their hands. 

L. D. Baeeows. 

Boston, Mass., Nov., 1862. 



PROEM 



The highest truths of transcendental metaphysics 
will one day reach the populace. Not only the stand- 
ard of intellect, but that of morality, will be raised. 
The race of the Papinians, the Cromwells, and Mar- 
vels, will be multiplied. It was once said all could 
not learn to read, write, and account. Now they do 
learn these and other things. They will one day learn 
all things. Intellect will conquer all obstacles, and 
teach the human race to realize untold perfection. 

But it will be accomplished piecemeal. Progres- 
sion is a series of stages. Individuals first, then 
groups, then classes, then nations, are raised. You 
can no more introduce, at once, the multitude to the 
highest results of philosophy, than you can take a 
man to the summit of a monument without ascending 
the steps, or reach a distant land without traveling 
the journey. This book is a stage. As the preceding 
ones in this series, it is designed for the class of young 
thinkers to whom knowledge has given some intel- 
lectual aspiration, and fate denied the means of its 
scholastic gratification. It is therefore neither ele- 
mentary nor ultimate, but a medium between the 
two. It addresses itself to a want. It deals in results. 

It dictates doing. 

2 



18 PEOEM. 

Spontaneous life is the life of the people. Their 
knowledge is confined to phenomena. Their practical 
philosophy is the reality of Hobbism. Disguise it as 
we may, their sole business is the betterance of their 
condition. All you can do is to guide their rude in- 
terpretation of nature, men, and manners — -to give 
plain method to their classification, coherence to their 
inferences, justice to their invectives. They want no 
new philosophy. There are more old ones which are 
good than they can study. There is more wisdom 
extant than they can master, more precepts than they 
can apply. Weapons innumerable surround them, of 
which they have to be taught the use. Their watch- 
word is work. The scaling-ladders of the wise which 
they, having mounted the citadel of wisdom, have 
kicked down, are yet of service to those who are below. 
I have picked a few of these ladders up, and reared 
them in these pages for the use of those who have yet 
to rise. 

Fastidious punctilios of scholarship would be out 
of place in such a book as this. He who addresses 
the artisan class must, like the Spartans, write to be 
read, and speak to be understood. Mechanics and 
literary institutions cannot cultivate their frequenters, 
and those greatly mistake the requirements of learn- 
ing and the state of the people who think they can. 
They can stimulate improvement, and this is their 
province. Nations never become civilized and learned 
till subsistence is secure and leisure abundant. So of 
individuals. The populace are still engaged in the 
lowest battle of animal wants ; and even the middle 
classes are in the warfare of intellectual wants. In 
the ancient state ofsociety war was the only trade, 
force the only teacher, and the battle-ax the only 



PROEM. 19 

argument. A transition has indeed taken place 5 the 
time, and means, and ends are changed ; but not the 
relative position of men. ~No more do we struggle 
for the victory of conquest, but we struggle for wages 
and more intelligence. Knowledge has reached the 
mass so as to make them sensible of their ignorance 
without diminishing their privations, and they are 
now engaged in a double battle against Want and 
Error. The struggle, therefore, is resolute. The 
training wanted is practical ; the weapons serviceable 
and ready for use. Provided the literary sword will 
cut, few will quarrel about the polish. If the blade 
has good temper, he who needs it will put up with a 
plain hilt. 

"When I contemplate the appliances which learning 
and science present to the scholar, and see how mul- 
tiplied are its means of knowing the truth upon all 
subjects, I cannot conceive that he can be struggling 
like the untaught thinker between right and wrong. 
To the scholar, truth and falsehood must be apparent ; 
and since the learned do not penetrate to the intellect 
of the populace, and establish intelligence among 
them, it must be that the learned want courage or 
condescension, or that common sense among them is 
petrified in formulas. We want either a hammer or 
a fire to break the spell or dissolve the ice. 

Those words of Guizot which I have placed on the 
title-page indicate the broad obviousness of precept 
aimed at in this work. Hudibras tells us that 

" All the logician's rules 

Teach nothing hut to name their tools." 

I have attempted to recast this order. In the " Logic 
of Facts " I have dealt with the materials of reason- 



20 PKOEM. 

ing. This is such " Application " of them as I should 
make. In this matter I have striven to speak without 
affecting superiority or infallibility. Writer and 
reader stand on the same level, and from a common 
ground thus established mutual inquiry starts. The 
information attempted is essentially practical. It is 
not the heavy inexorable theory of the last age ap- 
plied to the bustle and elasticity of this ; but upon 
the learning of the schools is endeavored to be en- 
grafted the learning of life, the literature of the 
streets and of trade, the logic of the newspaper and 
the platform, and the rhetoric of daily conversation; 
that the reader may acquire a public as well as a 
scholastic spirit : the aim being to elicit originality, 
to realize a distinct individual, who shall go forth 
into the arena of the world with determinate and dis- 
ciplined powers capable of usefully influencing its 
affairs. 

In the division of the Parts' and the succession of 
the Chapters, there is no pretension to scientific clas- 
sification. The distinction drawn between the Parts, 
though not recognized, will, I believe, be found prac- 
tically suggestive. The order of the Chapters is that 
which seemed to me to be natural, at least to throw 
light, one upon the subject of the other. In " Hints " 
a greater license is allowed, and strict sequence is 
not so much looked for as suggestiveness. 

The First Part treats of the Rudiments of Rheto- 
ric, the elements which the student derives from the 
instruction of others. After the " Proem " has in- 
formed the reader of the design of the book, " Rhet- 
oric" defines and explains the subject; "Delivery" 
commences with the laws of tone, founded on the 
study of feeling. "The Theory of Persuasion " accu- 



PEOEM. 21 

mulates materials from the study of manifestation ; 
"Method" teaches how to use these materials with 
power ; " Discipline " teaches how this power is con- 
firmed ; "Tact" teaches its special application. 

The Second Part includes those topics, a knowledge 
of which is not so much, or rather, not so well, de- 
rived from the instruction of others, as acquired by 
the personal observations of the student. Doubtless 
the teacher can impart them, but only in a qualified 
sense. The student will never excel unless he trust 
to himself and to his independent exertions. The 
practical relation between the subjects in this Part 
seem to be this: "Originality" is a source of inde- 
pendent power ; "Heroism" its manifestation ; "Pro- 
portion " prunes " Heroism " of Exaggeration and 
Declaration; "Style" indicates individuality of ex- 
pression; "Similes" offer themselves as weapons of 
expression; "Pleasantry" its relief; "Energy" is a 
species of lemma to Eloquence ; "Eloquence" mar- 
shals the powers to effect conviction on a given 
point; "Premeditation" teaches how effect is to be 
provided for; "Reality" infuses confidence; "Ef- 
fectiveness" sums up the condition of complete im- 
pression; "Mastery" denotes the signs of rhetorical 
perfection. 

The Third Part, again, relates in its distinction 
rather to the student than to the subject intrinsically 
considered. This Part treats of topics in which the 
student finds the application of previous acquisitions. 
"Criticism" applies preceding topics to the develop- 
ment of beauties and correction of faults; "Debate" 
is tact applied to conversion; "Questioning," or 
Socratic Disputation, is the auxiliary of Debate; 
"Personalities" treat of the conduct of Controversy; 



22 PROEM. 

" Eepetition " is the philosophy of Reformation; 
" Poetry " is the highest result of Rhetoric. 

Whatsoever well expressed thought I have found 
which illustrated my subject I have taken, and, what 
is somewhat more unusual, I have acknowledged it ; 
because the author of a useful idea ought to be re- 
membered as one who leaves a legacy. Through this 
punctiliousness the critics will say that I have not 
composed, but that I have compiled a bool^; though 
I see books published around me in which there is 
more that belongs to others than in this book, but 
the obligations being concealed, the ostensible authors 
get the credit of being original. We are all of us 
indebted to those who have thought before us, and we 
say with Montaigne : "I have gathered a nosegay of 
flowers in which there is nothing of my own but the 
string which ties them." But in this case the string 
which ties them is my own. The architect (to pass 
from nature to art) has the credit of his conception 
and erection of an edifice. Yet he does not create 
the materials. . The materials he finds, but he gives 
them proportion, place, and design. The idea is his ; 
and if good, we credit him with distinct merit. Why, 
therefore, should not the author of a book, even if 
made up of other men's materials, be credited also 
with distinct merit, if his work has an idea which 
subordinates the materials he employs and shapes 
them to a new utility % G. J. EL 



PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 



P A E T I. 
DERIVATIVE POWERS 



CHAPTER I. 

KHETOEIC. 



Rhetoric is the application of logic to mankind. 
By reasoning we satisfy ourselves, by rhetoric we 
satisfy others. The rhetorician is commonly con- 
sidered most perfect who carries his point by what- 
ever means. Men like to see the man who is a 
match for events, and equal to any exigency. But 
it is plain we must make some distinction as to the 
manner in which a point is to be carried. We may 
as well say that a man may carry the point of life, 
that is, fill his pockets by any means, as influence 
men by any means. A low appeal to the passions 
we call clap-trap. I know no better definition of rhet- 
oric than Dr. Johnson's definition of oratory. " Ora- 
tory," said the doctor, "is the power of beating 
down your adversaries' arguments and putting better 
in their places." 



24 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Descending more into detail, the description given 
by Lord Herbert of Oherbury is the happiest and 
healthiest delineation of rhetoric that has fallen under 
my notice. 

" It would be fit that some time be spent in learn- 
ing rhetoric or oratory, to the intent that upon all 
occasions you may express yourself with eloquence 
and grace ; for, as it is not enough for a man to have 
a diamond unless it is polished and cut out into its 
due angles, so it Will not be sufficient for a man to 
have a great understanding in all matters, unless the 
said understanding be not only polished and clear, 
but underset and helped a little with those figures, 
tropes, and colors which rhetoric affords, where there 
is use of persuasion. I can by no means yet com- 
mend an affected eloquence, there being nothing so 
pedantical, or indeed that would give more suspicion 
that the truth is not intended, than to use overmuch 
the common forms prescribed in schools. It is well 
said by them, that there are two parts of eloquence 
necessary and commendable ; one is, to speak hard 
things plainly, so that when a knotty or intricate 
business, having no method or coherence in its parts, 
shall be presented, it will be a singular part of ora- 
tory to take those parts asunder, set them together 
aptly, and so exhibit them to the understanding. 
And this part of rhetoric I much commend to every- 
body ; there being no true use of speech but to make 
things clear, perspicuous, and manifest, which other- 
wise would be perplexed, doubtful, and obscure. 

" The other part of oratory is to speak common 
things ingeniously or wittily ; there being no little 
vigor and force added to words when they are de- 
livered in a neat and fine way, and somewhat out of 



RHETORIC. 25 

the ordinary road, common and dull language savor- 
ing more of the clown than the gentleman. But 
herein also affectation must be avoided; it being better 
for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express 
m himself, than by those words which may smell either 
of the lamp or inkhorn ; so that, in general, one may 
observe, that men who fortify and uphold their 
speeches with strong and evident reasons, have ever 
operated more on the minds of the auditors than 
those who have made rhetorical excursions. Aristo- 
tle hath written a book of rhetoric, a work in my 
opinion not inferior to his best pieces, whom there- 
fore with Cicero ole Oratore, as also Quinctilian, you 
may read for your instruction how to speak ; neither 
of which two yet I can think so exact in their ora- 
tions, but that a middle style will be of more efficacy, 
Cicero in my opinion being too long and tedious, 
Quinctilian too short and concise." 

" Between grammar, logic, and rhetoric there ex- 
ists a close and happy connection, which reigns 
through all science, and extends to all the powers of 
eloquence. 

"Grammar traces the operations of thought in 
known and received characters, and enables polished 
nations amply to confer on posterity the pleasures of 
intellect, the improvements of science, and the his- 
tory of the world. 

" Logic converses with ideas, adjusts them . with 
propriety and truth, and gives the whole an elevation 
in the mind consonant to the order of nature or the 
flight of fancy. 

"Rhetoric, lending a spontaneous aid to the de- 
fects of language, applies her warm and glowing tints 
to the portrait, and exhibits the grandeur of the uni- 



26 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

verse, the productions of genius, and all the works of 
art, as copies of the fair original."* 

He who gives directions for the attainment of ora- 
tory is supposed, if a public speaker, to be capable 
of illustrating his own precepts. 

" He may be thought to challenge criticism, and 
his own performances may be condemned by a refer- 
ence to his own precepts ; or, on the other hand, his 
precepts may be undervalued through his own fail- 
ures in their application. Should this take place in 
the present instance, I have only to urge, with Hor- 
ace in his Art of Poetry, that a whetstone, though 
itself incapable of cutting, is yet useful in sharpening 
steel. No system of instruction will completely 
equalize. natural powers ; and yet it may be of service 
toward their improvement. The youthful Achilles 
acquired skill in hurling the javelin under the in- 
struction of Chiron, though the master could not com- 
pete with the pupil in vigor of arm.f 

But there is little danger, in these days, of any 
serious judgment being passed upon the indifferent ex- 
emplar of the rhetorical maxims he lays down. Our 
orators escape as our statues do. Good public monu- 
ments are so scarce that the people are no judges of 
art, and great speakers so seldom arise that the peo- 
ple are no judges of oratory. England has not 
reached the age of excellence in this respect. Great 
events can excite it, but only a national* refinement, 
including opulence and a liberal philosophy, can sus- 
tain it. The power of oratory requires the union of 
intellect, leisure, and health, discipline of thought, 
accuracy of expression, method, a manly spirit, an 
absolute taste, copiousness of information upon the 

* Spectator, No. 421. t Whately's Rhetoric, preface. 



DELIVERY. 27 

given subject, a vivid imagination and concentration. 
Oratory — by which term I always mean the highest 
efforts in the art of public persuasion — might exist in 
the Church but for its dread of imitating the theater.* 
It is suppressed among the Dissenters by the influence 
of evangelism. Did this not exist, their precarious 
pay would deter them from the pursuit of the art. 
The bar is too full of business and too anxious for 
fees, to reach much distinction where leisure and 
choice are necessary. The politician is generally in- 
dolent if not dependent, and if necessitous he has to 
struggle for himself when he should be struggling for 
excellence. Besides these drawbacks, there are vari- 
ous popular prejudices which few minds are strong 
enough to withstand, and which deter the young 
aspirant after eloquence. Under various heads, as 
"Premeditation," "Discipline," and others, these 
points* of prejudice will be discussed. 



CHAPTEK H. 

DELIVERY. 



"Elocution," says Walker, "in the modern seMse 
of the word, seems to signify that pronunciation which 
is given to words when they are arranged into sen- 
tences, and form discourse." The power of distinct 
and forcible pronunciation is the basis of delivery. 
Between deliberate, full-toned, and energetic speak- 
ing, and feeble, indistinct, and spiritless utterance, 
there is the difference of live and dead oratory. 

* See Note A. page 167. 



28 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

The rudiments of speaking are few and simple. 
Yowels should have a bold, round, mellow tone. This 
is the lasis of speaking. A slight, short, mincing 
pronunciation of the accented vowels is the prime 
fault to be avoided. 

Audibility depends chiefly on articulation, and ar- 
ticulation depends much on the distinctness with 
which we hear the final consonants. 

R has two sounds, a rough and a smooth one. The 
rough r is proper at the beginning of words, and the 
smooth r at the end of words, or when succeeded by 
a consonant. The audibility of the r in each case 
gives strength to the utterance. 

In about twenty-two words in our language, begin- 
ning with A, the h is not sounded. These words must 
be carefully attended to, and all other words begin- 
ning with h must have that letter distinctly heard. 
In illustration of this neglect of aspiration where 
proper, teachers of elocution are accustomed to say, 
that if the Indian swallows the sword we (h)eat the 
poker. 

A strong delivery is to be constantly cultivated — 
that is, an energy that shall prevent drawling, and a 
slowness that shall avoid mumbling words or chop- 
ping half the sounds away, as hasty speaking does. 
Tajse time to articulate fully and intonate. Speak 
"trippingly" without tripping. If you must be ex- 
treme, better be solemn than hasty. 

Robert Hall, whose talent for extempore speaking 
was such that, when eleven years of age, he was set 
up to preach extempore to a select auditory of full- 
grown men, says of himself: "To me to speak slow 
was ruin. You know, sir, that force or momentum is 
conjointly as the body and the velocity ; therefore, as 



DELIVERY. 29 

my voice is feeble, what is wanted in body must be 
made up in velocity." This is a mathematical figure 
of speech, and is more true of dynamics than rhet- 
oric. This remark has seriously misled many young 
speakers. There is a distinction to be noted between 
a small voice arising from peculiarity in the conform- 
ation of the larynx, and the feeble voice which arises 
from the narrow chest or from physical debility. 
Unless there is a great strength to support any mo- 
mentum imparted, indistinctness and alternations 
of screechings and whispers will be the inevitable 
results. 

At a Corn-law meeting held in Glasgow, in 1845, 1 
sat at half distance from the platform. Having of- 
fered my services to the Lord Provost, I was uncer- 
tain whether I should not be required to take part in 
the proceedings. I was therefore anxious to hear 
all that was said. It was at this time that I first felt 
perfectly the annoyance of indistinct speaking. At 
the Newhall Hill meetings in Birmingham I had been 
accustomed to hear the Warwickshire orators roar, 
but in Glasgow I found they only spoke, and spoke 
as though they were paid for the sound they made, 
and did not get a good price for it. At length the 
Rev. Dr. King arose, who spoke with strong deliber- 
ateness. His speech was ably conceived and wisely 
delivered. Every word fell on the ear like the steady 
tolling of a bell. His voice was the anodyne of the 
night. Whenever I go to a public meeting I pray 
that one Dr. King may be present. 

It is said of Mr. Macaulay, (I think by Francis in 
his " Orators of the Age,") that when an opening is 
made in a discussion in the House of Commons, he 
rises, or rather darts up from his seat, and plunges at 



30 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

once into the very heart of his subject, without exor- 
dium or apologetic preface. In fact, you have for a 
few seconds a voice pitched in alto, monotonous and 
rather shrill, pouring forth words with inconceivable 
velocity, ere you have become aware that a new 
speaker, and one of no common order, has broken in 
upon the debate. A few seconds more and cheers, 
perhaps from all parts of the house, rouse you com- 
pletely from your apathy, compelling you to follow 
that extremely voluble and not very enticing voice, 
in its rapid course through the subject on which the 
speaker is entering, with a resolute determination, as 
it seems, never to pause. You think of an express 
train, which does not stop even at the chief stations. 
On, on he speeds, in full reliance on his own momen- 
tum, never stopping for words, never stopping for 
thoughts, never halting for an instant, even to take 
breath ; his intellect gathering new vigor as it pro- 
ceeds, hauling the subject after him, and all its pos- 
sible attributes and illustrations, with the strength of 
a giant, leaving a line of light on the pathway his 
mind has trod, till, unexhausted and apparently inex- 
haustible, he brings his remarkable effort to a close 
by a peroration so highly sustained in its declamatory 
power, so abounding in illustration, so admirably 
framed to crown and clench the whole oration, that 
surprise, if it has even begun to wear off, kindles 
anew, and the hearer is left utterly prostrate and 
powerless by the whirlwind of ideas and emotions 
that has swept over him. This, however, only illus- 
trates the liberty a man may take with elocution if 
he has genius to compensate for it. That member 
must beware, who attempts to charm the House of 
Commons by a monotonous alto without Macau] ay's 



DELIVERY. 31 

wit, his power of enlightenment, and fecundity of 
illustration. 

From Quinctilian to Blair, rhetoricians have in- 
sisted on the value of accuracy of expression as pro- 
motive of accuracy of thought. Accuracy of de- 
livery tends equally to this result ; it does more, it 
improves the memory as well as the understanding, 
and imparts the power of concatenation of speech. 
The naturally voluble may dispense with this aid, but 
others will find it the only mode of learning public 
speaking. 

A clergyman, who in his early days denied that 
grammar or emphasis had anything to do with pulpit 
exercises, one day found his mistake by the laughter 
created on his reading this text : " And he spake to 
his sons, saying, Saddle me, the ass, and they saddled 
him." Of this same divine it is told that a man 
whom he reprimanded for" swearing replied that he 
did not see any harm in it. " ISTo harm in it," said 
the minister ; " why do you not know the command- 
ment, " Swear not at all V " I do not swear at all" 
said the man, "I only swear at those who annoy 
me." 

The emphasis which is suggested by the sense is 
the best guide. Let a person make sure of the sense 
and his emphasis will be natural and varied. An 
active and original conception can alone produce 
personality of enunciation, which is the chief charm 
of oratory. Conception is the sole governor of into- 
nation. Of the delicious magic of inflection Eben 
Jones has given us a poet's idea in his lines " To a 
Personification of Ariel at the Theater :" 

"If a new sound should music through the sky, 
How would all hearing drink the challenging tone ; 



32 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

And when thou uttered'st thy denying reply 

To this questioning of love, as Ariel alone 

Only could utter it, suddenly making known 

New voice, new human music ; then did burn 

Each listener, to divine, ere it was gone, 

What feelings toned it ; though none might learn, 

How many, divine and deep, in that sweet 'No ' did yearn. " 

The offensiveness of affectation was justly satirized 
in the confessions of a dandy given in a recent ro- 
mance. Mr. Affection is recounting his rejection 
by a young lady, upon whom he had inflicted his at- 
tentions. " 'You are mistaken !' said she, replying to 
my look, ' it was not your dress, it was not your man- 
ners. The young gentleman who comes from Bond- 
street to tune our piano, is quite as affable and much 
more dressy.' * The people at the Koyal Lodge, prob- 
ably, afford you some little insight into my condition, 
as a pretext for your doing me the honor of admit- 
ting me into your acquaintance,' said I with con- 
siderable bitterness, for I was stung home. 'No, 
it was jour voice; it was the hypocritical modulation 
of your voice that satisfied me you had moved in the 
best society,' replied Miss Yavasour, with provoking 
coolness ; 'I saw that you were a most delicate mons- 
ter; that you had a voice for me and another for 
Annie, a third for the pony, a fourth for "the lodge- 
keepers ; there was nothing natural about you !' " 

Attracted by the pretensions of a placard, adorned 
by a testimonial from the " Times," I went, in Glas- 
gow,, to hear some professional recitations. One of 
them was the "Story of a Broken Heart." The un- 
fortunate girl of whom it was told did not die imme- 
diately, but it struck me she would have done so had 
she heard Mr. Wilson recite her story. The subject 
was that piece of gracefuleffeminacy in which Wash- 



DELIVERY. 33 

ington Irving has told, with drawing-room sentiment- 
ality, the. story of the proud love of the daughter of 
Curran for the unhappy and heroic Emmet. 

]STo one can recite with propriety what he does not 
feel, and the key to gesture, as well to modulation, is 
earnestness. ISTo actor can portray character unless 
he can realize it, and he can only realize it by 
making it for a time his own. Eoger Kemble's wife 
had been forbidden to marry an actor, and her father 
was inexorable at her disobedience ; but after he had 
seen her husband upon the stage he relented, and 
forgave her with this observation : " "Well, well ! I 
see you have not disobeyed me after all ; for the man 
is not an actor, and never will be an actor !" 

As the presence of genius will compensate for. the 
neglect of the elocution of utterance, so earnestness 
and great ideas will produce eloquence of effect with- 
out gesture in delivery. It is said of Robert Hall 
that the text of his discourse was usually announced 
in the feeblest tone, and in a rapid manner, so as fre- 
quently to be inaudible to the majority of his congre- 
gation. After the exordium, he would commonly 
hint at, rather than explicitly announce, the very 
simple divisions of the subject on which he intended 
to treat. Then his thoughts would begin to multiply, 
and the rapidity of his utterance, always considerable, 
would increase as he proceeded and kindled. He 
had no oratorical action, scarcely any kind of mo- 
tion, excepting an occasional lifting or waving of the 
right hand, and, in his most impassioned moments, 
an alternate retreat and advance in the pulpit by a 
short step. Sometimes the pain in his back, to which 
lie was so great a martyr, would induce him to throw 
his arm behind, as if to give himself ease or support 



84 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

in the long continued, and, to him, afflictive position 
of standing to address the people. Nothing of the 
effect which he produced depended on extraneous 
circumstances. There was no pomp, no rhetorical 
nourish, and few (though whenever they did occur, 
very appropriate) images, excepting toward the 
close of his sermon, when his imagination became 
excursive, and he winged his way through the loftiest 
sphere of contemplation. His sublimest discourses 
were in the beginning didactic and argumentative, 
then descriptive and pathetic, and finally, in the 
highest and best sense, imaginative. Truth, to him, 
was their universal element, and to enforce its claims 
was his constant aim. Whether he attempted to en- 
gage the reason, the affections, or the fancy, all was 
subsidiary to this great end. He was always m earn- 
est, profoundly in earnest. But it is also true that 
as a chaste, concise, and energetic style is more 
effective than a florid, turgid, and prolix one, so the 
judicious employment of moderate gesture is more 
effective upon the genius of the English people, who 
love moderation, than any possible amplification of 
spasmodic attitudes or redundancy of grimace. 

The prompting of Lucio to Isabel, when pleading be- 
fore Angelo for the life of her brother, as rendered 
by Shakspeare in Measure for Measure, is one of the 
happiest practical lessons in elocutionary art on rec- 
ord. As a piece of preceptive teaching, neither the 
rhetoric of ancient or modern times has produced 
anything so happy, so concise, and yet so compre- 
hensive, as Hamlet's directions to his players. It is 
a manual of elocution in miniature.* 

* See Note B, page 1 68. 



THEORY OF PERSUASION. 35 

CHAPTER HI. 

THEORY OF PERSUASION. 

"Rhetoric," saysTlato, " is the art of ruling the 
minds of men ;" but to rule mind you must know it.* 
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin : but 
we cannot touch nature through the rules of art 
without knowing nature. " He who in an enlight- 
ened and literary society aspires to be a great poet 
must become a little child. He takes to pieces the 
whole web of his mind."* This is what the young 
rhetorician must do. He must tread backward the 
path of life to the first moment of consciousness, and 
ask all possible questions of his own experience. 
Carlyle has said that a healthy man never asks him- 
self such personal questions. But a thoughtful man 
does. Could the disembodied experience of men be 
presented to view, so that the conscious life of each 
could be palpable in bodily form, how few figures 
would present the entire lineaments of mankind. 
We should behold an assemblage of mutilated figures, 
the limbs of some, the arms of others, the trunk, or 
the head, would be invisible; so little, as respects 
consciousness, do men generally possess themselves. 
As, however, man is himself essentially his own 
standard of judgment, is himself the measure of other 
men, it is inevitable that he will form a defective esti- 
mate of others who is defective himself. The rhetori- 
cian, then, who would hope to operate on the natures of 
others, must primarily make himself acquainted with 

his own. 

* Macaulay, Crit. and Hist. Essays, vol. i. 



36 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

An appeal to experience is the best test we have 
of the force of an inducement. "The argument," 
says Emerson, " which has not the power to reach 
my own practice, I may well doubt will fail to reach 
yours. I have heard an experienced counselor say, 
that he never feared the effect upon a jury of a law- 
yer who does not believe in his heart that his client 
ought to have a verdict." A remarkable instance of 
the result of an appeal to personal conviction is af- 
forded in Bailey's Review of Berkeley's Theory of 
Vision. " Many years ago," says Mr. Bailey, " I 
held what may be styled a derivative opinion in 
favor of Berkeley's Theory of 'Vision ; but having in 
the course of a philosophical discussion had occasion 
to explain it, I found on attempting to state in my 
own language the grounds on which it rested, that they 
no longer appeared to me to be so clear and conclu- 
sive as I had fancied them to be. I determined to 
make it the subject of a patient and dispassionate ex- 
amination. The result has been a clear conviction 
in my own mind of its erroneousness, and a desire to 
state to the philosophical world the grounds on which 
that conviction has been formed." A philosophical 
illustration of the truth of Emerson's observation, that 
that statement is only fit to be made public which you 
have come at in attempting to satisfy your own 
curiosity. Men may live, and think, and reason, with 
the mere surface knowledge which life presents to 
every observer; but no one can master persuasion, as 
an art, unless he passes in review the origin of ideas 
and analyzes the motives of men. 

A sound theory of intelligence is the basis of all 
systematic persuasion. Metaphysical philosophy has 
been prolific in its dissertations on the facts and attri- 



THEORY OF PERSUASION. 37 

butes of human mentality ; but the classification of 
intelligence laid down by some of the more judicious 
followers of Gall is the most scientific, and, conse- 
quently, the most intelligible which the student can 
follow. It is not possible to indicate a particular 
theory in detail with "a chance of its being univers- 
ally useful. For the general characteristics of hu- 
manity are variously combined with the national, 
local, and individual, in every audience who may be 
addressed by tongue or pen. The simple elements of 
humanity, like the letters of the alphabet, are, ac- 
cording to the arrangement of circumstances, spread 
out into countless volumes of character, each written 
in a peculiar language, and requiring a copious lexi- 
con to render it intelligible to the reader.* The gen- 
eral principles, say of phrenology, indicate the out- 
lines of human nature, and the study of men and 
manners fills up the detail. An old writer, I think 
Ralph Cudworth, says : " It is acknowledged by all, 
that sense is passion. And there is in all sensation, 
without dispute, first a passion in the body of the 
sentient, which bodily passion is nothing else but 
local motion impressed upon the nerves from the 
objects without, and thence propagated and com- 
municated to the brain, where all sensation is made. 
For there is no other action of one body upon another, 
nor other change or mutation of bodies conceivable 
or intelligible, besides local motion ; which motion 
in that body which moves another, is called action ; 
in that which is moved by another, passion. And, 
therefore, when a compound object very remotely 
distant is perceived by us, since it is by some passion 
made upon our body, there must of necessity be a 

* Mrs. L. Grimstone. 



38 PUBLIC SPEAKING A^D DEBATE. 

• 

continual propagation of some local motion of press- 
ure from thence unto the organs of our sense or 
nerves, and so unto the brain. As when we see 
many fixed stars sparkling in a clear night, though 
they be all of them so many semi-diameters of the 
earth distant from us, yet it must, of necessity, be 
granted that there are local motions or pressure from 
them, which we call the light of them, propagated 
continually or uninterruptedly through the fluid 
heaven unto our optic nerves, or else we could not 
see them." This indicates very plainly the philoso- 
phy of impressions. We have nothing to do here 
with the controversies of metaphysicians concerning 
the transcendentalism of intuitive knowledge. It 
may be supernatural. It is, however, certain that a 
great proportion of human knowledge is the result of 
material relations, and to these relations the precepts 
of knowledge apply. We may therefore indicate 
with sufficient accuracy for practical purposes, that 
the consciousness of external things is produced or 
generated by the actions of those things on the or- 
gans of sense. The brain has no power to create, 
only a susceptibility to receive notions. The brain 
is the forge of thought,* and the rhetorician is the 
smith who hammers out ideas in it. 

So far as human conduct is influenced by material 
considerations, and these are capable of being com- 
bined into a system, confidence can be imparted to 
the speaker, and certainty infused into his efforts. 

It might be illustrated at considerable length and 

by distinguished examples, that appeals to religious 

sentiments will always be avoided by a judicious 

orator when addressing mixed assemblies.f They 

* Carlyle. f See Note C, page 170. 



THEORY OF PERSUASION. 39 

are proper enough when spoken to a religious audi- 
ence, but when employed for the purpose of influenc- 
ing a mixed meeting they may fail to affect a con- 
siderable portion. The experienced and well-in- 
formed speaker has always a wider resource. He 
can draw his arguments from moral and political 
considerations, founded on utility. These all men 
can understand and feel. In those cases in which 
an orator cannot conscientiously restrict himself to 
this species of reasoning, he must take the other 
course, but let him not calculate on complete success 
or universal impressions. 

The great business is to find out the right notion, 
and adapt it to the understandings of those whom we 
address. This world is very matter-of-fact ; men are 
very much the creatures of ideas. Notions govern 
everything. Impulses are the real destiny ; men fol- 
low them as surely as the stars or the planets, and it 
is in this sense that what is to be is. 

As garment draws the garment's hem, 
Men their fortunes bring with them.* 

From lowest to highest all are attached by that 
which has the attractive relation. Matter draws 
matter. The magnet has no attraction for gold or 
copper, but how it clings to the iron ! Man has va- 
rious attractions — gold, honor, love. To know what 
ideas are common to men, is to know humanity ; to 
know how they are gained, is to know how to govern 
men by speech or pen. 

Every man, said Walpole, has his price. Whether 
"Walpole had sounded the venality of all patriotism I 
know not. Of course he had fixed the market price 

* Emerson. 



40 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

of his own virtue. But with more truth and less of- 
fensiveness it may be said that every man has his 
reason, which, when once presented to him, will sway 
him ; and to find this out is the problem rhetoric has 
to solve. I am not more favorable than Hood to the 
plan of dropping truth gently, as if it were china, 
and likely to break. But if a fair case be so stated 
as not to mortify others by assumed arrogance, as not 
to annoy by ceaseless importunity, as not to disgust 
by seeming vanity, but accompanied by evident indi- 
cations of disinterested sincerity, it will nearly always 
prove acceptable. It is not the truth men hate, but 
the unwise and untutored auxiliaries which so often 
attend its enunciation. " He who would correct my 
false view of facts," said one who understood the des- 
potism of a wise method, " he must hold up the same 
facts in the true order of thought, and I can never go 
hack. A man who thinks in the same direction as 
myself, but sees further, who has tastes like mine, 
but greater power, will rule me any day, and make 
me love my ruler."* 

The young orator will do well to notice that moral- 
ity is better understood, at least in theory, than in 
former periods of our history, and that the public re- 
quire sincerity on the part of a speaker ; and a life 
which shall illustrate w T hat the orator seeks to enforce, 
will add materially to his influence. The reader may 
ask : May not a recommendation be a good one 
though the giver of it be bad ? This is not the ques- 
tion. Is it not an advantage when both are worthy ? 
The public may accept good advice from men who 
will not take it themselves. But is it not the object 
of a wise rhetoric to increase the number of men 

* Emerson. 



THEORY OF PERSUASIOX. 41 

who will take sound advice ? If the public should be 
composed of men who hear only and never practice, 
who does not see that we may give over all exhorta- 
tions of amendment. Mankind reason that whatever 
is good for the public is good for individuals, since 
individuals make up the public. And when it is seen 
that a man does not follow his own advice, it is con- 
cluded that either he is a simpleton, and consequently 
is not to be heeded, or that he is secretly conscious 
of some inapplicability in his own recommendations, 
and consequently is to be suspected. 

The moral existence of men is made up of a few 
trains of thought, which, from the cradle to the grave, 
are excited and re-excited, again and again, at the 
suggestion of sensitive impressions. These leading 
ideas rule despotically over conduct, and whoever 
awakens these associations governs those whom he 
addresses. It is in the appeals to these ancient im- 
pressions that we recognize the power and genius of 
the poet. It is in these leading ideas that we see 
the source of character. These are the great features 
in the lives of men which the rhetorician studies. 
His knowledge of them constitutes the weapons with 
which he works. When Napoleon in Egypt was 
threatened by his disaffected generals, he vanquished 
them by an appeal to the three leading traits in their 
character — their pride, their honor, and their bravery. 
Walking coolly among them, he said : " Soldiers, you 
are Frenchmen ! You are too many to assassinate, 
and too few to intimidate me." The rebellion was 
blown aside with the breath of these words. The fury 
of the men was subdued to admiration, and they 
turned away, exclaiming : " How brave he is." Truly 
is it said the heart has no avenue so open as that of 



42 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

flattery, which, like some enchantment, lays its guards 
asleep. 

A groundless outcry has been raised against speak- 
ers who appeal to the feelings. The only question to 
be decided is, "What are the proper feelings of men ? 
To appeal to these must always be right. The con- 
clusions arrived at through the medium of such feel- 
ings are as legitimate as conclusions arrived at by 
appeals wholly belonging to the understanding. Feel- 
ings are the stays of intellect, the first links in the 
chain of powerful argument. The appeal to reality is 
the foundation of conviction. The lion was not to be 
subdued by pictures of Hercules and Theseus; he 
wanted the fact of his superior strength displayed. 
It was necessary that Hercules and Theseus should 
appear. 

In nine years' experience in the office of a public 
tutor in one of the universities, Paley found, in dis- 
coursing to young persons upon topics of morality, 
that unless the subject was so drawn up to a point as 
to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact 
place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered 
upon — in other words, unless some curiosity was ex- 
cited before it was attempted to be satisfied — the 
labor of the teacher was lost. When information was 
not desired, it was seldom, he found, retained. 

The art of education consists in finding out what 
the child or adult wants to know. Inspired with de- 
sire to know, he is inspired with power to learn, and 
excited aptitude is the happy moment of acquirement. 
This neglected progress is arrested. This fact ex- 
plains the failure of half the orations and lectures of 
these days. An audience is an adult school. It has, 
in the short space of an hour, to be educated in a 



THEORY OF PERSUASION. 43 

new purpose. The undertaking is presumptuous, and 
is only to be accomplished by the union of rare judg- 
ment, disciplined powers, a store of means, and un- 
faltering energy. Yet how many rush into the arena 
of oratory without forethought, and go home wonder- 
ing why they failed, and blaming the apathy of the 
people. Humanity is an instrument not to be played 
upon by unskillful performers. Had we men who 
studied oratory as great artists do music, painting, 
and sculpture, the majesty of ancient eloquence 
would yet flourish among us. 

We can do without any article of luxury we never 
had, but when once obtained it is not in human na- 
ture to surrender it voluntarily. Of twelve thousand 
clocks left by Sam Slick, only ten were returned. 
" We trust to soft sawder," said Sam, " to get them 
into the house, and to human nature that they never 
come out of it." Yet how many persons expect to 
produce effects upon assemblies of men who never 
bestow half the time upon the study of their natures 
as was given by our American clock-seller ! 

The wise persuader will therefore treasure up all 
such facts as strikingly influence character, adapt- 
ing, with rigid justice, the motive to the condition ; 
to the great occasion, the strong inducement. 
Then, to borrow the words of Hazlitt : " The 
orator is only concerned to give a tone of mas- 
culine firmness to the will, to brace the sinews and 
muscles of the mind ; not to delight our nervous sens- 
ibilities, or soften the mind into voluptuous indolence. 
The flowery, and sentimental style is, of all others, 
the most intolerable in a speaker. He must be confi- 
dent, inflexible, uncontrollable, overcoming all oppo- 
sition by his ardor and impetuosity. We do not com- 



44 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

mand others by sympathy with them, but by power, 
by passion, by will." On other occasions the orator 
is not reluctant to remember that the words of sincerity 
and kindness never fail when addressed to people not 
stirred by passion -or rendered sullen by real or 
fancied contempt. Then the iron argument and the 
imperious air give place to the happier philosophy 
sung by Darwin, which teaches 

" How Love and Sympathy, with potent charm, 
Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm ; 
Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains. 
And bind society in golden chains," 



CHAPTEE IV. 

METHOD. 



The art of persuasion is dependent on no one thing 
so much as method. To have the fact, and to know 
how to tell it, is to hold rhetorical success in our 
hands. But it is of no use to have the fact unless we 
know how to tell it, and it is this which method 
teaches. There is, said the " Quarterly Review " 
lately, no power over human affairs like the right 
word spoken at the right season. 

Method is derived from a Greek word signifying a 
path, a way, or transit. Where there are many 
transits, step follows step in pursuit of an object. 
And as there must be, for a true pursuit, a definite 
object in view, the principle of unity is implied in 
that of progression. Hence in a true method there 



METHOD. 45 

must be a definite pursuit, otherwise circumstances 
will create sensations ; but there will be no thought 
without method ; and there may be restless and inces- 
sant activity, but without method there will be no 
progress. When the mind becomes accustomed to 
the outward impressions of objects, it turns to their 
relations, which hence become its prime pursuit, and 
may be called the materials of method. 

The kinds of relations are two, the one arising from 
that which must he, the other that by which we 
merely perceive that it is. The former is called law, 
in its original acceptation, laying down the rule ; the 
other is called the relation of theory.* 

This is the method of science ; it applies to the 
order pursued in the arrangement of encyclopedias. 
The method of art, if not so rigid, is yet regular, and 
marks both performances and character. 

Coleridge asks: "What is it that first strikes us, 
and strikes us at once, in a man of education, and 
which, among educated men, so instantly distinguishes 
the man of superior mind ? ISTot always the weight 
or novelty of his remarks, nor always the interest of 
the facts which he communicates, for the subject of 
conversation may chance to be trivial, and its dura- 
tion to be short. Still less can any just admiration 
arise from any peculiarity in his words and phrases, 
for every man of practical good sense will follow, as 
far as the matters under consideration will permit 
him, that golden rule of Cesar's : Insolens verhum, 
tanquam scojpulum, evitare. The true cause of the 
impression made on us is, that his mind is methodi- 
cal. We perceive this in the unpremeditated and 
evidently habitual arrangement of his words, flow- 
* See Encyclopedia Metropolitans, Art. "Method." 



4:6 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

ing spontaneously and necessarily from the clearness 
of the leading idea, from which distinctness of mental 
vision, when men are fully accustomed to it, they ob- 
tain a habit of foreseeing at the beginning of every 
sentence how it is to end, and how all its parts may 
be brought out in the best and most orderly suc- 
cession. However irregular and desultory the con- 
versation may happen to be, there is method in the 
fragments."* The illustration of this is easy. 

Two persons of opposite opinions will often meet ; 
the one to convert the other. For instance : A seeks 
to bring B to the adoption of his opinions. I have 
witnessed the experiment often. The general course 
of procedure is this. A commences to unfold, expa- 
tiate on, and enforce his views. He expects thus to 
win B to their entertainment. But the mistake is a 
grave one. A argues at B when he should reason 
with him. A thus stands on the platform of his 
opinions and preaches to B, who is perched upon a 
platform of his own. A thus expects B to come to 
him. B probably expects the same of A. Thus both 
expect what neither intends. 

A, in expecting B to come to him, assumes that 
on the part of his opponent there exists a predisposi- 
tion for his views. This should never be assumed. 
It is the first endeavor of a wise propagandist to cre- 
ate it if it does not exist, and strengthen it if it does ; 
and whether it exists or not' he should always conde- 
scend as though it did not. The business of A, the 
converter, is to go down to the platform B stands 
upon, to inquire his principles, study his views and 
turn of thought until he finds some common ground 
of faith, morals, opinion, or practice, with which he 
* Encyclopedia Metropolitana. 



METHOD. 47 

can identify himself. The propagandist should com- 
mence by playing the pathfinder. The business of 
A is to find a path from B's platform to his own, down 
which B can agreeably walk. When a common 
ground is found, A argues on that to B. The narrow 
spot of identity soon enlarges if A has truth on his 
side, for all truth, like electricity, has a tendency to 
pass into all bodies uncharged with it, until an equi- 
librium of light is established, and the current is 
universal. 

A, in finding a common ground in B's intellectual 
sphere, establishes an equality with B. This gives 
A an advantage. By studying B's views, instead of 
making B study his, he condescends to B ; he thus 
establishes fraternity. This predisposes B to good 
will. 

Equality and fraternity are the two inlets to the 
understanding. Conversion is uniformity. It ends 
in intellectual equality. It must begin so. The 
pleasure of universal opinion is the harmony it cre- 
ates ; the propagandists commence in fraternity, that 
being the auspicious harbinger of harmony. 

It is of no use to say you cannot find a common 
ground. He who cannot find it, cannot convert. 
How can persons, any more than bodies, cohere who 
never touch ? So long as each denies to the other a 
particle of reason on his side ; so long as each main- 
tains an infallibility of pretension to complete truth ; 
they both assume what is contrary to the nature of 
things, and exclude the common ground which must 
be established between them, where truth and error 
can join issue. There is no impassible gulf between 
contending men or contending opinions but that dug 
by pride and passion*. We all have a common start- 



48 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

ing point. "We have a common consciousness of im- 
pression ; a common nature to investigate ; a com- 
mon sincerity actuates us ; truth is our common ob- 
ject, and we have a common interest in discovering 
it. Nature made us friends : it is false pride that 
makes us enemies. A common ground exists be- 
tween all disputants. This is an important fact too 
little attended to, or indeed too little understood by 
inexperienced thinkers. The common ground which 
exists is not one which policy makes, but one that 
nature provides. 

These remarks make conviction to depend upon 
truth, not upon forms of procedure. Nothing is rec- 
ommended here which is inconsistent with truth; 
no Gunning questioning, no sophistical entrapment. 
The sole precepts are those of condescension and 
contrast. Find a common ground of agreement, and 
you find a common point of sight, from which all 
objects are seen in the same light ; and a clear plane 
is obtained on which principles can be drawn, and a 
perfect contrast of truth and error displayed. He 
who has the truth will make it plainer by wisdom of 
procedure. Differences are often made wider by ir- 
relevant, repulsive debate. Differences which did 
not exist are often created in this way. All men de- 
sire the truth, and there is a way in which all can 
find it. The understandings of men run in a given 
channel ; each thinker looks as it were through a 
telescope of his own. Let A bring his views within 
the vision of B, and the chances are in favor of B 
seeing the truth, if truth there be. If he sees error, 
A is benefited by the discovery made by a clearer 
sight than his own. "The faculty of speech," says 
Quinctilian, " we derive from nature ; but the art 



METHOD. 49 

from observation. For as in physic, men, by seeing 
that some things promote health and others destroy 
it, formed the art upon those observations ; in like 
manner, by perceiving that some things in discourse 
are said to advantage and others not, they accord- 
ingly marked those things in order to imitate the 
one and avoid the other. 1 ' 

It is a maxim of the schoolmen, " contrariorum 
eadem est scientia /" we never really know what a 
thing is, unless we are also able to give a sufficient 
account of its opposite. This is the maxim of con- 
trast that enters into all effective persuasion. 

Various rules are given to direct the treatment of 
regular subjects. We are to begin, says Walker, 
with : 1. Definition, 2. Cause, 3. Antiquity or Novel- 
ty, 4. University or Locality, 5. Advantages or Dis- 
advantages. 

A theme, which is proving some truth, is said to 
have these parts : 1. The proposition or meaning of 
the theme ; 2. The reason in favor of it, 3. The Con- 
firmation or display of the unreasonableness of the 
contrary opinion ; 4. The simile or illustration ; 5. Ex- 
ample from history ; 6. Testimony of others ; 7. Con- 
clusion or summary. 

Writers are not all agreed in determining the parts 
of an oration, though the difference is rather in the 
manner of considering them than in the things them- 
selves.* Cicero mentions six, namely : Introduction, 
Narration, Proposition, Confirmation, Confutation, 
and Conclusion. 

Writers are not agreed upon the division of ora- 
tions, because nature has not agreed. All subjects 
will not admit of being treated under so many heads, 
and some audiences will not admit of the formality. 

4 



50 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Sometimes an exordium is a bore, and a peroration 
tedious. Tact retrenches method as circumstances 
dictate. Palej's custom was to break down a subject 
into as many distinct parts as it really appeared to 
contain, and make each of them the subject of a 
separate and rigorous investigation. This seems a 
wise rule ; we then take such parts as the subject 
affords, in the order prescribed, abbreviating them 
as the knowledge or temper of the audience -may 
require. . 

The facts of necessity and discretion premised, the 
most practical formula of general procedure seems to 
me to be : 1. Give the introduction. 2. Explain the 
terms of the proposition, show what is granted and 
what disputed on each side, and then state the point of 
controversy. 3. Examine objections, and establish 
your own proposition. 4. Refute objections, and ex- 
pose fallacies. 5. Make observations of enforcement 
naturally suggested by the subject: 

These rules of old discovered, not devised, 
Are Nature still, but nature methodized. 

It is our opinion, says one of our critical journals, 
that all things should be made known in their proper 
places. No knowledge can be complete or thorough- 
ly wholesome which is partial. 

Dr. Paley has furnished two observations which 
may be usefully borne in mind in the enforcement of 
topics : 

1. In all cases, where the mind feels itself in dan- 
ger of being confounded by variety, it is safe to rest 
upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single 
instance. Among a multitude of proofs, it is one that 
does the business. 



METHOD. 51 

2. A just reasoner removes from his consideration 
not only what he knows, but what he does not know, 
touching matters not strictly connected with his argu- 
ment, that is, not forming the very steps of his deduc- 
tion : beyond these his knowledge and his ignorance 
are alike relative. 

The simplicity and wisdom of profound method has 
been illustrated in the works of Morelly. Yillegar- 
delle says of Morelly's Essays on the Human Mind, 
treating on the analysis of the intellectual faculties, 
published in 1743: "The substance of this small 
educational treatise, which contains the developed 
germ of the method of instruction to which Mr. 
Jacotot has given his name, is comprised in the two 
following propositions : 

" 1. The inclinations of the mind are reducible to 
two, namely, Desire to know and Love of order • to 
these two ends we must refer all, even the amuse- 
ments of children. 

" 2. It is sufficient to present to the soul [under- 
standing ?] objects in the same order as it generally 
follows, without making it perceive that it must at- 
tend to them." 

The first essential of any kind of greatness is that it 
should have a purpose. We do not suspect the 
presence of genius till we feel this manifest. The 
Duke of Wellington has few arts which win applause. 
He is illiterate. All the school-boys in the kingdom 
laughed at his letters. Instead of the refinement of 
the classic council- table, his " Dispatches " are as 
coarse as fish-market bulletins; yet has he achieved 
greatness of a certain kind because he has decision, 
of character. 

One of his biographers — I think it is the Kev. Mr. 



52 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

"Wright — has given us the key to the duke's success 
in a few thoughtful words : " One characteristic of the 
Duke of Wellington strikes the reader from the very 
first, even when but a novice in war or statesman- 
ship : his resolute will and unbounded self-reliance. 
Confident in his own capacity, he thinks, decides, 
and acts while other men are hesitating and asking 
advice. He is evidently conscious that decision and 
promptitude, even though sometimes a man may err 
for want of due deliberation, will, in the long run, 
more often conduct to success than a slow judgment, 
that comes too late." This is the secret. The ca- 
pacity to see this .truth and the resolution to act upon 
it, is the capacity to rise above common men. In- 
numerable people will strike out a course and pursue 
it while all goes well ; but the temper of greatness 
ever remains unshaken by reverses. It places its life 
on the hazard of a well-chosen plan, and looks for 
failures and defeats, but relies on the "long run" of 
persistency for success. 

The intellectual character of the Duke of Welling- 
ton, so far as it has been displayed in civil affairs, 
accords with what his military exploits indicate. A 
simple and brief directness are the qualities of his 
speeches. " He strips a subject of all extraneous and 
unnecessary adjuncts, and exposes it in its natural 
proportions. He scents a fallacy afar off, and hunts 
it down at once without mercy. He has certain con- 
stitutional principles which are to him real standards. 
He measures propositions or opinions by these stand- 
ards, and as they come up or fall short, so they are 
accepted or disposed of." The Duke of Wellington 
early took sides ; he learned well the principles of 
which he would become the partisan. I have itali- 



METHOD. 53 

cised the words in the sentence just quoted from 
" Fraser," which indicates his intellectual habit. It 
is hard to tell, generally, what are the " constitu- 
tional principles " of British liberty. But it is not 
hard to tell what they are when you know who uses 
the phrase. The principles of the throne and court 
may be expressed in three propositions. The duke 
having adopted these, sits at ease, and measures the 
plausible speeches of progress by them, and unmasks 
the sophism of the quasi-liberal. 

But, however directed, men will ever respect 
straightforwardness of character. It is heroic in that 
man, whoever he may be, who looks over the 
troubled sea of time and manfully elects his course. 

"Stern is the on-look of necessity : 

Not without shudder may a human hand 

Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny." 

There is heroism in the very act, which cannot be 
too much applauded. It is this which converts life 
from being a phantom or a maneuver into a reality 
and a process. It throws into ignoble shade your 
petty men of expedients. Principle either gives 
success or confers dignity ; by chicanery all may be 
lost, and nothing noble can ever be gained. By 
maneuver weak men seek to cheat human nature, 
cajole fate, and win a glorious destiny by paltry tricks. 
But the whole order of things is against it. Such, a 
course may triumph, but it is the triumph of luck, 
not success. It is accident, not merit. Dignity is 
alone borne of principle and purpose. 

"He who by principle is swayed 

In truth and justice still the same, 
Is neither of the crowd afraid, 

Though civil broils the state inflame. 



54 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Nor to a haughty tyrant's frown will stoop, 

Nor to a raging storm when all the winds are up." 

Horace, Ode 3, Lib. HE. 

What decision is to character, what principle is to 
morals, so is method to literature. To have a clear 
purpose, and vigorously pursue it, is the strong ele- 
ment of rhetorical success. It is this feature which 
leads to the delineation of individual character. Cole- 
ridge has shown that the character of Hamlet is de-. 
cided by the constant recurrence, in the midst of 
every pursuit, of philosophic reflections. Mrs. Quick- 
ley's talk is marked by that lively incoherence so 
common with garrulous women, whereby the last idea 
suggests the successor, each carrying the speaker 
further from the original subject. After this manner: 
"Speaking of tails, we always like those that end 
well — Hogg's, for instance. Speaking of hogs, we 
saw one of these animals the other day lying in the 
gutter, and in the opposite one a well dressed man ; 
the first had a ring in his nose, the latter had a ring 
on his finger. The man was drunk, the hog was 
sober. A man is known by the company he keeps," 
etc. As Dr. Cams clips English, some of Bulwer's 
characters amplify periods. Dominie Sampson ex- 
claims, " Prodigious." Sam "Weller talks slang. In 
other cases an overwhelmning passion pervades a 
character, or an intellectual idiosyncrasy is the pecu- 
liar quality, leading the possessor to look at everything 
in a given light. But whatever may be the feature 
fixed upon, its methodical working out constitutes in- 
dividuality of character. 

In the courts young barristers are drilled in an iron 
method. A judge always expects, at the outset, the 
enunciation of the object of the speech. A judi- 



METHOD. 55 

clous speaker will always observe this rule for the 
sake of his audience. As a system of reasoning pro- 
ceeds from certain axioms which can never be lost 
sight of except at the peril of confusion, so a discourse 
proceeds on something which is taken for granted, 
and which must be confessed and explained at the 
beginning, or the speaker will be considered only as 
indulging in airy speculations, and his hearers will be 
bewildered instead of enlightened, and be anxious 
about the danger of a fall instead of intent on the 
scene placed before them. The advantages of the 
course here advised have been well enforced in the En- 
cyclopedia Metropolitana. " In purely argumentative 
statement, or in the argumentative division of mixed 
statements, and especially in argumentative speeches, 
it is essential that the issue to be proved should be 
distinctly announced in the beginning, in order that 
the tenor and drift that way of everything that is 
said may be # the better apprehended ; and it is also 
useful, when the chain of argument is long, to give 
a forecast of the principal bearings and junctures 
whereby the attention will be more easily secured, 
and pertinently directed throughout the more closely 
consecutive detail, and each proposition of the series 
will be clenched in the memory by its foreknown 
relevancy to what is to follow." These are well- 
known rules which it were superfluous to cite except 
for the instruction of the young. But examples may 
be occasionally observed of juvenile orators, who will 
conceal the end they aim at until they have led their 
hearers through the long chain of antecedents, in 
order that they may produce surprise by forcing a 
sudden acknowledgment of what had not been fore- 
seen. The disadvantage of this method is that it 



56 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

puzzles and provokes the hearer through the discourse, 
and confounds him in the conclusion ; and gives an 
overcharged impression of the orator's ingenuity on 
the part of those who may have attended to him suf- 
ficiently to have been convinced. It is a method by 
which the business of the argument is sacrificed to a 
puerile ostentation in the conduct of it, and the ease 
and satisfaction of the auditors sacrificed to the vanity 
of the arguer. 

But though the purport of a speech must be 
avowed, the drift of an illustration may be concealed. 
One of Mr. Fox's Covent Garden orations affords a 
brilliant example. He took the case of certain poach- 
ers who had about that time suffered imprisonment 
in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and he calculated the days of 
their incarceration, and the pecuniary loss their fam- 
ilies had sustained by their detention from labor. The 
statistics were dry as' summer's dust. What this had 
to do with the question of the corn laws no one could 
divine, when, by a masterly turn of thought, he 
asked : " If poachers are so punished who take the 
rich man's bird, how ought peers to be punished who 
take the poor man's bread ?" The house rose with 
surprise. The climax had the effect of a light ap- 
plied to a funeral pile, in which the arguments of 
the protectionists were to be consumed before the 
meeting. 

Method is often of moment in trivial things. Some 
years ago it was the custom in Glasgow, when a fire 
broke out in the evening, for the police to enter the 
theater and announce the fire and the locality, that if 
any person concerned was present he might be ap- 
prised of the impending loss. On one occasion, when 
the watch commenced to announce, " Fire, 45 Candle- 



METHOD. 57 

riggs," the audience took alarm at the word "fire," 
and concluded that it applied to the theater. A rush 
ensued which prevented the full notice being heard, 
and several persons lost their lives. The inversion of 
the order of the announcement, " 45 Candleriggs, Fire," 
would have prevented the disaster. But afterward the 
practice of such announcements was forbidden, it being 
impossible, I suppose, to reform the rhetoric of po- 
licemen. 

Of the effect of the want of method in neutralizing 
the most magnificent, powers, Burke is a remarkable 
instance. As an orator, Burke dazzled his hearers, 
and then distracted them, and finished by fatiguing or 
offending them. And it was not uncouth elocution 
and exterior only which impaired the efficacy of 
his speeches. Burke almost always deserted his sub- 
ject before he was abandoned by his audience. In 
the progress of a long discourse he was never satisfied 
with proving that which was principally in question, 
or with enforcing the single measure which it was 
his business and avowed purpose to enforce; he di- 
verged to a thousand collateral topics ; he demon- 
strated as many disputed propositions ; he established 
principles in all directions; he illuminated the whole 
horizon with his magnificent but scattered lights. 
There was, nevertheless, no keeping in his spoken 
compositions, no proportion, no subserviency of infe- 
rior groups to greater, no apparent harmony or unity 
of purpose. He forgot that there was but a single 
point to prove, and his auditors in their turn forgot 
that they had undergone the process of conviction 
upon any. 

When Fadladeen essays his critical opinion on the 
poem of Feramorz, he commences thus : " In order to 



58 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

convey with clearness my opinion of the story this, 
young man has related, it is necessary to take a re- 
view of all the stories that have ever "■ " My good 

Fadladeen !" exclaimed Lalla Rookh, interrupting 
him, " we really do not deserve that you should give 
yourself so much trouble. Your opinion of the poem 
we have just heard will, no doubt, be abundantly ed- 
ifying, without further waste of your valuable erudi- 
tion." " If that be all," replied the critic, evidently 
mortified at not being allowed to show how much he 
knew about everything but the subject immediately 
before him, " if that be all that is required, the 
matter is easily dispatched." He then proceeded to 
analyze the poem. The wit of Moore was never more 
happily expended than in satirizing this learned dis- 
cursiveness. The race of Fadladeen is immortal. 

A few years ago a distinguished clergyman of the 
Universalist denomination was accused, while in 
Lowell, of " violently dragging his wife from a re- 
vival meeting and compelling her to, go home with 
him." Pie replied : "Firstly, I have never attempted 
to influence my wife in her views, nor her choice of 
a meeting. Secondly, my wife has not attended any 
of the revival meetings in Lowell. Thirdly, I have 
not attended even one of those meetings for any pur- 
pose whatever. Fourthly, neither my wife nor my- 
self has any inclination to attend those meetings. 
And, fifthly, I never had a wife !" This divine must 
have had " Order" large. 

Next to those who talk as though they would never 
come to the point, are a class of bores who talk as 
though they did not know what the point was. Be- 
fore they have proceeded far in telling a story, they 
stumble upon some Mr. What's-his-name, whom they 



METHOD. 59 

have forgotten, and though it does not matter whether 
he had a name or not, the narrative is made to stand 
still until they have gone through the tiresome and 
fruitless task of trying to remember it, in which they 
never succeed. 

A gorgeous instance of method occurs in W. J„ 
Fox's Sermon on Human Brotherhood,* in which pol- 
ished taste has so adjusted each clause that they 
reach the climax worthy of that Grecian art which 
the passage celebrates. 

" From the dawn of intellect and freedom Greece 
has been a watchword on the earth. There rose the 
social spirit to soften and refine her chosen race, and 
shelter, as in a nest, her gentleness from the rushing 
storm of barbarism — there liberty first built her 
mountain throne, first called the waves her own, and 
shouted across them a proud defiance to despotism's 
banded myriads ; there the arts and graces danced 
around humanity, and stored man's home with com- 
forts, and strewed his path with roses, and bound his 
brows with myrtle, and fashioned for him the breath- 
ing statue, and summoned him to temples of snowy 
marble, and charmed his senses with all forms of elo- 
quence, and threw over his final sleep their vail of 
loveliness ; there sprung poetry, like their own fabled 
goddess, mature at once from the teeming intellect, 
gilt with the arts and armor that defy the assaults of 
time and subdue the heart of man ; there matchless 
orators gave the world a model of perfect eloquence, 
the soul the instrument on which they played, and 
every passion of our nature but a tone which the mas- 
ter's touch called forth at will ; there lived and taught 
the philosophers of bower and porch, of pride and 

* Sermons on Christian Morality. 



60 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

pleasure, of deep speculation and of useful action, who 
developed all the acuteness, and refinement, and ex- 
cursiveness, and energy of mind, and were the glory 
of their country, when their country was the glory 
of the earth." 



CHAPTER Y. 

DISCIPLINE. 



Since custom, says the wise Bacon, is the principal 
magistrate of a man's life,"let him by all means en- 
deavor to obtain good customs. Digressiveness is the 
natural state of the human faculties, till custom or 
habit comes in to give them a settled direction. Man 
is as liable to be influenced by the last impression as 
by any preceding one ; and the liability of man is the 
characteristic of children. The teacher knows this, 
for it is only by infinite diversion that children can 
be instructed for hours together, or governed without 
coercion. It is the object of discipline to check the 
tendency to diversion, and give stability to method. 
A man may be made to perceive method, but not to 
follow it, without the power of discipline. A child 
accustomed to it will go to bed in the dark with peace 
and pleasure, but all the rhetoric in the world would 
not accomplish the same end without habit. Nothing 
but habit will give the power of habit. 

Mr. John Foster, in his prospectus of his ruled 
copy-books, remarks that " the grand secret in teach- 
ing writing is to bestow much attention upon a little 



DISCIPLINE. 61 

variety. The necessity of a continued repetition of the 
same exercise till it can be executed with correctness, 
cannot be too strongly insisted on. But as this reit- 
eration is tedious for an age so fond of novelty as that 
of childhood, we should keep as close to the maxim 
as possible, and by a judicious intermixture of a few 
slightly differing forms, contrive to fix attention, and 
to insure repetition. 'The method of teaching any- 
thing to children,' says Locke, ' is by repeated prac- 
tice, and the same action done over and over again, 
until they have got the habit of doing it well ; a 
method that has so many advantages, whichever way 
we come to consider it, that I wonder how it could 
possibly be so much neglected.' Again : ' Children 
should never be set to perfect themselves in two 
parts of an action at the same time.' We have here 
the highest authority insisting on the very points 
which we labor to enforce, namely : 1. That it is only 
by constant reiteration, and persevering, pains-taking 
efforts, that ease and correctness in penmanship can be 
attained. 2. That the pupil should not advance too 
hastily, but proceed by natural gradations, from the 
simplest to the more difficult combinations." The 
discipline of penmanship may stand, also, for the dis- 
cipline of elocution, for men are as children on the 
verge of a new art. 

A speaker, like an actor, is subjected to the criti- 
cism of a casual hearing. The auditor who hears 
you but once will form an opinion of you forever. 
Against this injustice of judgment there is no protec- 
tion but in acquiring such a mastery over your pow- 
ers as to be able always to exert them well — to strike, 
astonish, or impress, in some respect or other, at every 
appearance. A man, therefore, who has a reputation 



62 PUBLIC SPEAKING . AND DEBATE. 

to acquire or preserve will keep silence whenever he 
is in any danger of speaking indifferently. He will 
practice so often in private, and train himself so per- 
severingly, that perfection will become a second na- 
ture, and the power of proficiency never desert him. 
The uninitiated, who think genius is an impulsive ef- 
fort that costs nothing, little dream with what pa- 
tience the professional singer or actor observes regu- 
lar habits and judicious exercise ; how they treasure 
all their strength and power for the hour of appear- 
ance. 

From Demosthenes to Curran, the personnel of or- 
ators has illustrated the triumphs of application as 
much as the triumphs of genius. " One day an ac- 
quaintance, in speaking of Curran's eloquence, hap- 
pened to observe that it must have been born with 
him. ' Indeed, my dear sir,' replied Curran, ' it was 
not; it was born three and twenty years and some 
months after me ; and if you are satisfied to listen to 
a dull historian, you shall have the history of its na- 
tivity. When I was at the Temple a few of us formed 
a little debating club. Upon the first night of meet- 
ing I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the 
anticipated honor of being styled " the learned mem- 
ber that opened the debate," or " the very eloquent 
gentleman who has just sat down," I stood up ; the 
question was the Catholic claims or the slave-trade, 
I protest I now forget which, but the difference, you 
know, was never very obvious ; my mind, was stored 
with about a folio volume of matter, but I wanted a 
preface, and for want of a preface the volume was 
never published. I stood up trembling through every 
fiber, but remembering that in this I was but imita- 
ting Tully, I took courage and had actually proceeded 



DISCIPLINE. 63 

almost as far as " Mr. Chairman," when to mj astonish- 
ment and terror I perceived that every eye was turned 
upon me. There were only six or seven present, and 
the room could not have contained as many more, yet 
was it, to my panic-stricken imagination, as if I were 
the central object in nature, and assembled millions 
were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I be- 
came dismayed and dumb. My friends cried " Hear 
him !" but there was nothing to hear. My lips indeed 
went through the pantomime of articulation, but I 
was like the unfortunate fiddler at the fair, who, upon 
coming to strike up ifre solo that was to ravish every 
ear, discovered that an enemy had maliciously 
soaped his bow. So you see, sir, it was not born with 
me. However, though my friends despaired of me, 
the cacoethes loquendi was not to be subdued without 
a struggle. I was for the present silenced, but I still 
attended our meetings with the most laudable regu- 
larity, and even ventured to accompany the others 
to a more ambitious theater, the club of Temple Bar. 
One of them was upon his legs — a fellow whom it 
was difficult to decide whether he was most distin- 
guished for the filth of his person or the flippancy of 
his tongue — just such another as Harry Flood would 
have called " the highly gifted gentleman with the dirty 
cravat and greasy pantaloons." I found this learned 
personage in the act of calumniating chronology by 
the most preposterous anachronisms. He descanted 
upon Demosthenes, the glory of the Roman forum ; 
spoke of Tully as the famous cotemporary and rival 
of Cicero, and in the short space of one half hour, 
transported the straits of Marathon three several times 
to the plains of Thermopylae. Thinking that I had 
a right to know something of these matters, I looked 



64 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

at him with surprise. "When our eyes met there was 
something like a wager of battle in mine, upon 
which the erudite gentleman instantly changed his 
invective against antiquity into an invective against 
me, and concluded by a few words of friendly counsel 
(horresco referens) to " orator mum," who he doubted 
not possessed wonderful talents for eloquence, al- 
though he would recommend him to show it in future 
by some more popular method than his silence. I 
followed his advice, and I believe not entirely with- 
out effect. So, sir, you see that to try the bird the 
spur must touch his blood.' • 

"The discovery on this occasion of his talents for 
public speaking encouraged him to proceed in his 
studies with additional energy and vigor. The defect 
in his enunciation (at school he went by the cogno- 
men of ' Stuttering Jack Curran') he corrected by a 
regular system of daily reading aloud, slowly, and with 
strict regard to pronunciation, passages from his favor- 
ite authors. His person was short, and his appearance 
ungraceful and without dignity. To overcome these 
disadvantages he recited and studied his postures be- 
fore a mirror, and adopted a method of gesticulation 
suited to his appearance. Besides a constant attend- 
ance at the debating clubs, he accustomed himself 
to extemporaneous eloquence in private by proposing 
cases to himself, which he debated with the same 
care as if he had been addressing a jury."* 

Mr. Macready, in the level part of the character 
of Mordaunt, in the " Steward," and in some others, 
has been saidf to exhibit that very rare acquirement, 
a perfectly unconstrained and graceful style of ex- 
pression, accompanied by a cool, quiet, and uncon- 

* Hogg's Weekly Instructor. f Blackwood, 1819. 



TACT. 65 

scious self-possession, in which the manners of a gen- 
tleman consist. This bearing, so indispensable in the 
speaker, is rarely to be acquired except by intercourse 
with good society. No closet theory will impart it 
so surely as the discipline of communication. 

Men of brilliant rather than solid powers dazzle 
themselves and others with isolated thoughts, too 
little caring for coherency. In this way Hazlitt has 
told us that "an improving actor, artist, or poet, never 
becomes a great one. A man of genius rises and 
passes by these risers, A volcano does not give 
warning when it will break out, nor a thunderbolt 
send word of its approach." To this it is sufficient to 
reply, that the volcano is not the production of a mo- 
ment, nor is the thunderbolt. The occasion of the 
display is sudden, but the collection of power, natu- 
ral or human, is of slow growth. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

TACT. 



In matters not absolutely scientific, the principles 
of Method are more arbitrary and dependent upon 
the circumstances in which a speaker finds himself 
placed. We may abandon the order of nature and 
follow that of the understanding, where conviction can 
be more readily effected. This is the province of Tact. 
Method is straightforward procedure ; Tact is adapta- 
tion. Method applies to general occasions ; Tact to 
special. 



66 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

The distinction between Method and Tact is illus- 
trated in the following practical remarks of Paley : 
" For the purpose of addressing different understand- 
ings and different apprehensions, for the purpose of 
sentiment, for the purpose of exciting admiration of 
our subject, we diversify our views, we multiply ex- 
amples. [This is Tact] But for the purpose of strict 
argument, one clear instance is sufficient ; and not 
only sufficient, but capable perhaps of generating a 
firmer assurance than what can arise from a divided 
attention." [This is Method.] 

When an opponent urges an objection, one way 
of replying to it is by endeavoring to prove that the 
assertion contained in the objection is not true. An- 
other alternative of which we may sometimes avail 
ourselves is, that if even the assertion be true, it is no 
objection to our position. 

It sometimes happens that the argument advanced 
against us is really an argument in our favor. Tact 
discovers and avails itself of these advantages. 
Method arranges the materials, Tact applies the re- 
sources, of reasoning. 

It is the judicious application of means that con- 
stitutes Tact. In journalism Tact is an indispensable 
requisite^ The history of Mr. Murray's daily paper, 
the "Representative," published for six or eight 
months, about twenty years ago, is abundant proof 
that unlimited command of capital, first-rate literary 
abilities in every branch of knowledge, and the highest 
possible patronage, are all insufficient to establish a 
London morning paper without that commodity which 
alone lends practical value to the other three, and 
which is far more difficult to be procured than the 
three put together. What the princely fortune of 



TACT. 67 

Mr. Murray, and his intellectual Titans of the " Quar- 
terly," and all his regal and legal, and ermined and 
coroneted, and lay and clerical, and civil and military, 
friends could not obtain, was the simple but inesti- 
mable gift called Tact.* 

Hamilton's "Parliamentary Logic" abounds in 
maxims which that experienced tactician had treas- 
ured up, observed, or invented during his public life. 
Many of these advices are utterly unworthy the 
imitation of an ingenuous man; but a few may 
be taken as illustrative of tact, good sense, and 
shrewdness : 

State what you censure by the soft names of those 
who would apologize for it. 

In putting a question to your adversary, let it be 
the last thing you say. 

Distinguish real from avowed reasons of a thing. 
This makes a fine 8nd brilliant fund of argument. 

Upon every argument consider the misrepre- 
sentations which your opponent will probably make 
of it. 

If your cause is too bad, call in aid the party : if 
the party is bad, call in aid the cause.f 

Nothing disgusts a popular assembly more than 
being apprised of your intentions to speak long. 

To succeed in a new sphere a man must take tact 
with him. In nine cases out of ten, method will 
miss the mark till tact has taught it adaptation. 
The House of Commons has often illustrated this 
opinion. 

So many things have to be taken into account, that 

* London Correspondent of the "Birmingham Journal." 
f "If neither is good," adds Hamilton, "wound your opponent," 
which may be parliamentary, but I do not choose to recommend it. 



68 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

nothing but experience can teach their management. 
Canning used to say,, that speaking in the House of 
Commons must take conversation for its basis ; that 
a studious treatment of topics was out of place. The 
House of Commons is a working body, jealous and 
suspicious of embellishments in debate, which, if used 
at all, ought to be spontaneous and unpremeditated.* 
Method is indispensable. Topics ought to .be clearly 
distributed and arranged; but this arrangement 
should be felt in effect, and not betrayed in the man- 
ner. But above all things, first and last, he main- 
tained that reasoning was the one essential element. 
Oratory in the House of Lords was totally different. 
It was addressed to a different atmosphere — a differ- 
ent class of intellects — more elevated, more conven- 
tional. It was necessary to be more ambitious and 
elaborate there. 

" Fellows who have been the oracles of coteries 
from their birth ; who have gone through the regular 
process of gold medals, senior wranglerships, and 
double foists, who have nightly sat down amid tu- 
multuous cheering in debating societies, and can 
harangue, with an unruffled forehead and an unfalter- 
ing voice, from one end of the dinner table to the 
other ; who, on all occasions, have something to say, 
and can speak with fluency on what they know noth- 
ing about, no sooner rise in the House than their 
spells desert them. All their effrontery vanishes. 
Commonplace ideas are rendered even more uninter- 
esting by a monotonous delivery ; and, keenly alive, 
as even boobies are, in those sacred walls, to the 
miraculous, no one appears more thoroughly aware 
of his unexpected and astounding deficiencies than 
* See Note D, page 171. 



TACT. 69 

the orator himself. He regains his seat, hot and 
hard, sultry and stiff, with a burning cheek and an 
icy hand ; repressing his breath lest it should give 
evidence of an existence of which he is ashamed, and 
clenching his fist, that the pressure may secretly con- 
vince him he has not as completely annihilated his 
stupid body as his false reputation."* 

How admirable a compendium is this of the history 
of rhetorical blockheads, who think that " in the 
great arena their little bow-wow " will be taken for 
" the loftiest war-note the lion can pour," just as if 
they were in their own small councils, and clubs, and 
societies! D'Israeli is said to have failed in this 
manner on the Spottiswoode business in the House 
of Commons ; but afterward, as the world knows, 
he achieved brilliant distinction. Tact alone can 
teach a man to feel his way and measure the men 
opposed to him ; it dictates judgment and effort, or 
silence. 

Eeputation and fortune are often made by Tact 
alone. The late Sir William Follett is an example. 
One of his obituary notices said : We do not, by any 
means, mean to say that at any period of his life he 
could be compared, as a scientific lawyer, (to scholar- 
ship he had no pretensions at all,) to Tindal, Maule, 
Patteson, Campbell ; or, in the equity courts, to 
Pepys, Pemberton, or Sugden. Thus his professional 
position was attributable neither to the superiority 
of his professional knowledge nor to any talent above 
his cotemporaries. In Parliament he was not to be 
compared with Plunkett, Brougham, Sir William 
Grant, or Perceval. He possessed not the strong, 
eloquent, and condensed power of diction, joined to 

* "Young Duke," by D'Israeli. 



70 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

the closest and severest reasoning, of Plunkett ; he 
had neither the stores of political, literary, and 
economical information, the versatility, the power of 
vigorous invective, nor of sarcasm, of Brougham ; the 
calm, philosophic spirit of generalization of Grant ; 
nor had he the dauntless daring and parliamentary 
pluck of Perceval. It must be admitted that he was 
neither an orator, nor a man of genius, nor a man 
of learning, apart from the specialite of his profession. 
He had neither passion, nor imagination of the fancy 
or of the heart. In what, then, lay his barristerial 
superiority ? In his capability to play the artful 
dodge. His greatest skill consisted in presenting his 
case in the most harmonious and fair-purposed aspect. 
If there was anything false or fraudulent, a hitch, or 
a blot of any kind in his cause, he kept it dexterously 
out of view, or hurried it trippingly over ; but if the 
blot was on the other side, he had the eye of the 
lynx and the scent of the hound to detect and run 
down his game. He had the greatest skill in reading 
an affidavit, and could play the " artful dodge " in a 
style looking so like gentlemanly candor, that you 
could not find fault. 

I do not give this example as imitable, only as il- 
lustrative of Tact. Tact so employed may denote a 
very good lawyer, but a very indifferent man. 

Those who had the pleasure of hearing Thorn, the 
weaver poet, converse, know the Spartan felicity of 
expression which he commanded. His conversation 
was often a study in rhetoric. He told a story in the 
best vein of Scotch shrewdness. He was one day 
recounting an anecdote of Inverury, or old Aberdeen, 
to a coterie of listeners. The point of the story 
rested on a particular word spoken in fitting place. 



TACT. 71 

When he came to it he hesitated as though at a loss 
for the term. " What is it yon say nnder these cir- 
cumstances," he asked: "not this, nor that," he re- 
marked, as he went over three or four terms by way 
of trial as each was endeavoring to assist him : " Ah," 
he added, apparently benevolent toward the difficulty 

into which he had thrown them, " we say ," for 

want of a better word. This, of course, was the word 
wanted ; the happiest phrase the language afforded. 
He gained several things by this finesse; he Ailivened 
a regular narrative by an exciting disgression, which 
increased the force and point of the climax. He 
created a difficulty for his auditors, for who, when 
suddenly asked, would be able to find a term which 
seemed denied to his happy resource ? or, finding it, 
would have the courage to present it to such a fastid- 
ious epithetist ? and he exalted himself by suggesting 
what appeared out of their power, and excited an 
indefinite wonder at his own skill in bringing a story 
to so felicitous an end, by the employment of a make- 
shift phrase. What would he have done if he could 
have found the right one ? was naturally thought. 
This was tact. It was a case analogous to that given 
by Dickens in one of his early papers, where the 
President, at an apparent loss for a word, asks, 
" What is that you give a man who is deprived of a 
salary which he has received all his life for doing 
nothing, or, perhaps worse, for obstructing public im- 
provement ?" u Compensation !" suggests the vice. 
The case was the same, except that Thorn was his 
own vice-president. 

An instructive lesson in Tact is given in the 
preface of Thomas Cooper to his " Purgatory 
of Suicides," Those who know the variety of 



72 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

historic incidents which crowded for record in his 
career, wonder at the discretion with which he con- 
fines himself to the few which stand at the portal 
of his majestic poem, to inform you of its origin 
and design. 



PABT II. 
ACQUIRED POWERS 



CHAPTER VII. 

OEIGINALITY. 

Originality is reality. In reference to thought, it 
is the conception of the truth of nature in opposition 
to the truth of custom. 

The material of which Originality is made has 
been discussed in previous chapters.* Its manifes- 
tation in literature has been well illustrated by the 
author of " Time's Magic Lantern,"f in a dialogue 
between Bacon and Shakspeare ; an extract from 
which is to this effect : 

" Bacon. He that can make the multitude laugh 
and weep as you do, Mr. Shakspeare, need not fear 
scholars. A head naturally fertile and forgetive is 
worjh many libraries, inasmuch as a tree is more 
valuable than a basket of fruit, or a good hawk bet- 
ter than a bag full of game, or the little purse which 
a fairy gave to Fortunatus, more inexhaustible than 
all the coffers in the treasury. More scholarship 
might have sharpened your judgment, but the par- 

* Logic of Facts, chaps, iv, v. 

f A series of papers that appeared in " Blackwood " some years 



74 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

ticulars whereof a character is composed are better 
assembled by force of imagination than of judgment 9 
which, although it perceive coherencies, cannot sum- 
mon up materials, nor melt them into a compound 
with that felicity which belongs to imagination alone. 

" Shakspeare. My lord, thus far I know, that the 
first glimpse and conception of a character in my 
mind is always engendered by chance and accident. 
We shall suppose, for instance, that I am sitting in a 
tap-room, or standing in a tennis-court. The behavior 
of some one fixes my attention. I note his dress, the 
sound of his voice, the turn of his countenance, the 
drinks he calls for, his questions and retorts, the 
fashion of his person, and in brief, the whole out- 
goings and in-comings of the man. These grounds 
of speculation being cherished and revolved in my 
fancy, it becomes straightway possessed with a swarm 
of conclusions and beliefs concerning the individual. 
In walking home, I picture out to myself what would 
be fitting for him to say or do upon any given occa- 
sion, and these fantasies being recalled at some after 
period, when I am writing a play, shape themselves 
into divers manikins, who are not long of being 
nursed into life. Thus comes forth Shallow and 
Slender, and Mercutio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

" Bacon. In truth, Mr. Shakspeare, you have ob- 
served the world so well, and so widely, that I can 
scarce believe you ever shut your eyes. I too, al- 
though much engrossed with other studies, am, in 
part, an observer of mankind. Their dispositions, 
and the causes of their good or bad fortune, cannot 
well be overlooked even by the most devoted ques- 
tioner of physical nature. But note the difference of 
habitude. ISTo sooner have I observed and got hold 



ORIGINALITY. 75 

of particulars, than they are taken up by my judg- 
ment to be commented upon, and resolved into gen- 
eral laws. Your imagination keeps them to make 
pictures of. My judgment, if she find them to be 
comprehended under something already known by 
her, lets them drop and forgets them ; for which rea- 
son a certain book of essays, which I am writing, 
will be small in bulk, but I trust, not light in sub- 
stance. Thus do men severally follow their inborn 
dispositions. 

" Shakspeare. Every word of your lordship's will 
be an adage to after times. For my part, I know 
my own place, and aspire not after the abstruser 
studies : although I can give wisdom a welcome 
when she comes in my way. But the inborn disposi- 
tions, as your lordship has said, must not be warped 
from their natural bent, otherwise nothing but sterility 
will remain behind. A leg cannot be changed into 
an arm. Among stage-players, our first object is to 
exercise a new candidate until we discover where his 
vein lies." 

In this mixture of observation and experiment, orig- 
inal information has its source. But the convention- 
alisms of society repress its manifestation. Jeffrey, 
in one of those passages marked by more than his 
ordinary good sense, has depicted its influence on 
young men : 

"In a refined and literary community," says he, 
" so many critics are to be satisfied, so many rivals to 
be encountered, and so much derision to be hazarded, 
that a young man is apt to be deterred from so peril- 
ous an enterprise, and led to seek distinction in some 
safer line of exertion. His originality is repressed, 
till he sinks into a paltry copyist, or aims at distinc- 



76 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

tion by extravagance and affectation. In such a state 
of society he feels that mediocrity has no chance of 
distinction ; and what beginner can expect to rise at 
once into excellence? He imagines that mere good 
sense will attract no attention, and that the manner is 
of much more importance than the matter, in a can- 
didate for public admiration. In his attention to the 
manner, the matter is apt to be neglected ; and in his 
solicitude to please those who require elegance of dic- 
tion, brilliancy of wit, or harmony of periods, he is 
in some danger of forgetting that strength of reason 
and accuracy of observation by which he first pro- 
posed to recommend himself. His attention, when 
extended to so many collateral objects, is no longer 
vigorous or collected; the stream, divided into so 
many channels, ceases to flow either deep or strong ; 
he becomes an unsuccessful pretender to fine writing, 
and is satisfied with the frivolous praise of elegance 
or vivacity." 

The Rev. Sidney Smith left on record his opinion 
of the influence of conventionality's cold decorum : 
"The great object of modern sermons is to hazard 
nothing ;* their characteristic is decent debility, which 
alike guards their authors from ludicrous errors, and 
precludes them from striking beauties. Every man 
of sense, in taking up an English sermon, expects to 
find it a tedious essay, full of commonplace morality, 
and if the fulfillment of such expectations be meri- 
torious, the clergy have certainly the merit of not dis- 
appointing their readers." 

Emerson, above all men, has written the philosophy 
of Originality : " Insist on yourself," says he, " never 
imitate. Your own gift you can present every mo- 

* See Note E, page 1*72. 



HEROISM. 77 

ment, with the cumulative force of a whole life's cul- 
tivation ; but of the adopted talent of another you 
have only an extemporaneous, half possession. The 
way to speak and write what shall not go out of fash- 
ion, is to speak and write sincerely. Take Sidney's 
maxim : ' Look in thy heart and write.' He that 
writes to himself writes to an eternal public." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HEROISM. 

What has Heroism to do with Rhetoric ? the reader 
will ask. Much. Courage in one thing, as we are 
told, does not mean courage in everything. A man 
who will face a bullet will not therefore face an 
audience. Heroism is the originality of action. 

-A cool, easy confidence is the source of daring. 
"Trust yourself; every heart vibrates to that iron 
string."* In one of those papers, rare in " Cham- 
bers's Journal," it is remarked : " There must, at all 
but extraordinary times, be. a vast amount of latent 
capability in society. Gray's musings on the Crom- 
wells and Miltons of the village are a truth, though 
extremely stated. Men of all conditious do grow and 
die in obscurity, who, in suitable circumstances, might 
have attained to the temple which shines afar. The 
hearts of Roman mothers beat an unnoted lifetime in 
dim parlors. Souls of fire miss their hour, and lan- 
guish into ashes. Is not this conformable to what all 

* Emerson. 



78 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

men feel in their own case? "Who is there that has 
not thought, over and over again, what else he could 
have done, what else he could have been ? Vanity, 
indeed, may fool us here, and self-tenderness be too 
ready to look upon the misspending of years as any 
thing but our own fault. Let us look then to each 
other. Does almost any one that we know appear to 
do or be all that he might ? How far from it ! Re- 
gard for a moment the manner in which a vast pro- 
portion of those who, from independency of fortune, 
and from education, are able to do most good in the 
world, spend their time, and say if there be not an 
immense proportion of the capability of mankind 
undeveloped.* The fact is, the bond of union among 
men is also the bond of restraint. We are commit- 
ted not to alarm or distress each other by extraordi- 
nary displays of intellect or emotion. Many struggle 
for a while against the repressive influences, but at 
length yield to the powerful temptations to nonentity. 
The social despotism presents the fetes with which it 
seeks to solace and beguile its victims ; and he who 
began to put on his armor for the righting of many 
wrongs, is soon content to smile with those who smile. 
Thus daily do generations rise and fall, life unenjoyed, 
the great mission unperformed. What a subject for 
tears in the multitude of young souls who come in 
the first faith of nature to grapple at the good, the 
true, the beautiful, but are thrown back, helpless and 
mute, into the limbo of Commonplace. O Conven- 
tionality, quiet may be thy fireside hours, smooth thy 
pillowed thoughts, but at what a sacrifice of the right 
and the generous, of the best that breathes and pants 
in our nature, is thy peace purchased !" 

* See Note F page 173. 



HEROISM. 79 

There is heroism in trusting yourself to events. 
That sagacity of which greatness is born puts its prow- 
ess to the test of experiment. In this lies the secret 
of the hero and the scholar ; they do not guess their 
abilities, but determine them by enterprise and achieve- 
ment. They try. My friend Mr. Storer, who was the 
wag of the Khetoric class of which we were members 
when students, communicated to me the subjoined par- 
ody. As the soliloquy of a novice, it expresses with 
felicity the young speaker's doubts and fears : 

To spout, or not to spout, that is the question : 

"Whether 'tis better for a shamefaced fellow, 

(With voice unmusical and gesture awkward,) 

To stand a mere spectator in this business, 

Or have a touch at Ehetoric ! To speak, to spout 

No more ; and by this effort, to say we end 

That bashfulness, that nervous trepidation 

Displayed in maiden speeches ; 'twere a consummation 

Devoutly to be wished. To read, to speechify 

Before folks, perhaps to fail; ay, there's the rub; 

For from that ill success what sneers may rise, 

Ere we have scrambled through the sad oration, 

Must give us pause: 'tis this same reason 

That makes a novice stand in hesitation, 

And gladly hide his own diminished head 

Beneath some half-fledged orator's importance, 

When he himself might his quietus make 

By a mere recitation. Who could speeches hear, 

Responded to with hearty acclamation, 

And yet restrain himself from holding forth — 

But for the dread of some unlucky failure — 

Some unforeseen mistake, some frightful blunder, 

Some vile pronunciation, or inflection, 

Improper emphasis, or wry-necked period, 

Which carping critics note, and raise the laugh, 

Not to our credit, nor so soon forgot ? 

We muse on this 1 Then starts the pithy question: 

Had we not best be mute and hide our faults, 

Than spout to publish them ? 



80 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

« 

Spout and publish them without hesitation. Had 
Eaphael feared to daub, he had never been Eaphael. 
Had Canova feared to torture marble, he had never 
been a sculptor. Had Macready feared to spout, he 
had never been an actor. If you stammer like De- 
mosthenes, or stutter like Curran, speak on. He who 
hesitates to hesitate, will always hesitate. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

PROPORTION. 

Bombast is inflation ; is turgid, dropsical language, 
great in parade, little in purport. It has its source 
in exaggeration, in want of proportion. A child 
catches at its coral and at the moon with the same 
expectation of clutching it. He has no idea of dis- 
tance. The boy cuts a stick or trundles his hoop 
with as much exultation as the man defeats an enemy 
or wins his wife. The boy has no notion of relative 
value. As everything seems equally new, so every- 
thing seems equally important to him. This want of 
measure, innocent and healthy in youth, is the source 
of bombast in men. 

" Man is a strange animal, but that complex ani- 
mal, a public meeting, is stranger. Its vagaries are 
surprising, and baffle analysis. It always seems to 
have more force than sense. Two heads are better 
than one, but some hundreds of heads appear to be 
worse than none. Take any number of men, each of 
whom would listen to reason, be open to conviction, 
and resolute to see fair play all round; compound 



PROPORTION. 81 

the honest men of sense in a public meeting, and the 
aggregate is headstrong, headlong, rash, unfair, and 
foolish. Tell any single man, totidem verbis, that 
there is nobody in the world like him, nobody so 
lovely and virtuous as his wife and daughters, and he 
will laugh in your face or kick you out of doors ; but 
tell the aggregate man the same of his multitudinous 
self and family, he will vent an ecstasy of delight in 
4 loud cheers.'"* But only the uneducated imitate 
this delusion. The time will come when meetings 
no more than men will tolerate the collective 
nonsense. 

The notorious defense of Thurtell some years since, 
which was so applauded for effectiveness by a portion 
of the press, is one of the most offensive exhibitions 
of vanity and wind-bag eloquence extant. Bombast 
is the language of vulgarity and villainy. Thurtell 
ought to have been condemned for his defense had 
he escaped from the penalty of his crime. Careless- 
ness of assertion and wildness of accusation are to 
the English people extremely distasteful, as marking 
either a deficiency of intellect or a want of the love 
of truth. 

Royalty has always been a patient and often a 
greedy recipient of egregious adulation. The ora- 
tory addressed to James I. on his progress through 
Scotland was of no common cast. Officials who 
addressed him at the various towns at which he 
arrived, "put together Augustus, Alexander, Trajan, 
and Constantine. It was supposed that even the 
antipodes heard of his courtesy and liberality; the 
very hills and groves were said to be refreshed with 
the dew of his aspect ; in his absence the citizens 

* "Spectator," 
6 



82 PUBLIC SPEAKING- AND DEBATE. 

were languishing gyrades, in his presence delighted 
lizards, for he was the sunshine of their beauty. At 
Glasgow Master Hay, the commissary, when attempt- 
ing to speak before him, became like one touched 
with a torpedo or seen of a wolf; and the principal 
of the university, comparing his majesty with the 
sun, observed, to that luminary's disadvantage, that 
King James had been received with incredible joy 
and applause; whereas a descent of the sun into 
Glasgow would in all likelihood be extremely ill 
taken. Hyperbole was not sufficient; the aid of 
prodigies was called ; a boy of nine years old harang- 
ued the king in Hebrew, and the schoolmaster of 
Linlithgow spoke verses in the form of a lion."* 

The measure of a man's understanding lies in his 
language. This he inevitably offers to all observers. 
Besides just taste being outraged by disproportion, 
he who is guilty of it loses the power of being im- 
pressive. "We are told of Dante, whose potent use 
of words has never been surpassed, that great and 
various as his power of creating pictures in a few 
lines unquestionably was, he owed that power to the 
directness, simplicity, and intensity of his language. 
In him "the invisible becomes visible," as Leigh 
Hunt says; "darkness becomes palpable, silence 
describes a character, a word acts as a flash of light- 
ning which displays some gloomy neighborhood 
where a tower is standing, with dreadful faces at the 
window."f 

"In good prose (says Frederic Schlegel) every 
word should be underlined;" that is, every word 
should be the right word, and then no word would 

* Progress and Court of King James the First. — "Quarterly Keview." 
f " Athenaaum," No. 1115. 



STYLE. 83 

be righter than another. It comes to the same 
thing, where all words are italics one may as well 
use roman. There are no italics ^n Plato, be- 
cause there are no unnecessary or unimportant 
words." * 

Declamation, which is assertion without proof, is 
disproportion in this sense, that it is a dogmatic 
enunciation, out of proportion with what is known by 
an auditory who reject the propositions announced. 
Nearly all Oriental eloquence is declamatory. Per- 
haps the Orientals are quicker to perceive or less 
exacting than Europeans, but the want of the reasons 
was felt among us, and Bishop Hooker supplied them 
sixteen centuries after. 

Precision must be attained at any cost. If we do 
not master language, says Mr. Thornton, it will master 
us. An idle word, says the "Daily News" has con- 
quered a host of facts. We must keep watch and 
ward over words. 



CHAPTEE X. 

STYLE. 



Eousseau sways mankind with that delicious might 
(the power of words) as Jupiter does with his light- 
nings. This is John Muller's tribute to the style of 
Rousseau. It has recently been asserted among us 
that "style is, and always has been, the most vital 
element of literary immortalities. More than any 
other quality, it is peculiar to the writer; and no 

* Guesses n1 Truth. 



84 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

one, not time itself, can rob him of it or even dimin- 
ish its value. Facts may be forgotten, learning grow 
commonplace^ truths dwindle into mere truisms, but 
a magnificent or beautiful style can never lose its 
freshness and its value. For style, even more than 
for his wonderful erudition, is Gibbon admired ; and 
the same quality, and that alone, renders Hume the 
popular historian of England in spite of his imperfect 
learning, the untrustworthiness of his statements in 
matters of fact, and the anti-popular caste of his 
opinions." * This is not greater praise than I should 
be inclined to award to masterly style, but this eulogy 
has the fault of making style to appear independent of 
sense. We value Hume for the grace and perspi- 
cuity of his narrative, and for those profound reflec- 
tions which, whether founded on real or fictitious 
data, are equally full of wisdom. Method, perspi- 
cuity, brevity, variety, harmony, are indeed separable 
from sense, but no combination of such qualities will 
give life to a book without sense. They are but the 
auxiliaries of meaning, not the substitutes for it. 
Gilfillan has happily said that " the secret of perfect 
composition is manly wisdom, uttered in youthful 
language." Youthful language is simple and clear. 
These are its properties. We are nothing unless we 
are critical, and we are nothing unless we are clear. 
That criticism which destroys the power of pleasing 
must be blown aside, and so must that finesse of style 
which cannot be understood. Again, the truth is 
obvious that sense is the despot of style. 

The " Dublin University Magazine" lately had this 
passage : " Eoz has achieved a great thing — he has 
created a style. Perhaps I am wrong to say created, 

* "Daily News'-' No. 409. 



STYLE. 85 

a term which implies independence of materials ; 
whereas the singular circumstance in this case is, 
that by careful study of previous styles, by imitation 
of them, by more perhaps than imitation in the first 
instance, this author has produced out of the hetero- 
geneous elements a compound essentially differing 
from all its component parts, and claiming, claiming 
justly, the high merit of being original. That such 
a result should follow such a course ought to encour- 
age writers who aim at true celebrity to adopt this 
humble and painstaking initiatory system, which, 
though in other arts it has admittedly led to the 
grandest results, (in painting, for instance,) in litera- 
ture has been too much overlooked and despised. 
Boz now stands alone in his style ; he has had no 
models, he has no imitators, he will probably have 
no disciples." I should think Dickens has smiled at 
this violent attempt to make a literary alchemist of 
him, as one fusing all sorts of styles in his crucible 
of composition, and bringing out quite a new mix- 
ture. Present society has furnished him with mate- 
rials ; a patient and an accurate observation has 
gathered them ; feeling, taste, and humor have com- 
bined them, and an unaffected simplicity has told 
them. I suspect that a happy nature and good sense 
have had more to do with Dickens's reputation than 
any amount of old styles, than Sterne or Sturm. 
Tindal said of Pitt's first speech, that it was more 
ornamental than the speeches of Demosthenes, and 
less diffuse than those of Cicero. That it should have 
been so often quoted, says Macaulay, "is proof how 
slovenly most people are content to think. It would 
be no very flattering compliment to a man's figure to 
say that he was taller than the Polish Count, (or Tom 



86 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Thumb,) and shorter than Giant O'Brien; fatter than 
anatomie vivante, and more slender than Daniel 
Lambert. No speaking can be less ornamental than 
that of Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that of 
Cicero." 

Heldenmair lays it down as a maxim of education 
that freedom is the all-essential condition of growth 
and power. There can be no fervor while, in the 
language of Sam £>lick, " Talk has a pair of stays, and 
is laced up tight and stiff." ■< It is freedom which is 
the active element of all fresh and vigorous style. 
Dr. Gilchrist observes that " what one of the ancient 
philosophers said of laws may be truly said of rhe- 
torical rules; they are like cobwebs which entangle 
the weak, but which the strong break through. The 
first rule of good composition is, that the composer be 
free and bold. Before a man can be a good thinker, 
or a good writer, he most be free and bold; he must 
be roused to noble daring ; he must feel his whole 
soul rising in scornful indignation at the thought of 
having been for a day a blind follower of blind lead- 
ers, a slave of slaves, a member of the herd of creep- 
ing, crouching, servile minds. Can servile composers 
in the harness of rules, dreading the lash of criticism, 
limping upon quotations, with their eye upon prece- 
dents and authorities, create a style at once new and 
striking, yet just and proper ? All real greatness is 
the offspring of freedom; there may be absurdity, 
folly, cant, hypocrisy, squeamish delicacy, finical 
politeness, sickly sentimentality, mawkish affectation 
in every possible fantastic form of fashion and varie- 
ty; but there cannot be original, substantial excel- 
lence without intellectual independence, manly think- 
ing and feeling." 



STYLE. 87 

As soon as a man understands a subject he is in a 
condition, so far as material goes, to write or speak 
about it. If he has also courage to write himself in 
his word, he may be said to have the materials and 
the strength to achieve originality. But let him not 
forget that fullness and freedom are both blind ; and 
that without the lights of taste and perspicuity and 
brevity he may offend, bewilder, and tire. 

Out of all a man may be able to say, taste (by 
which I chiefly mean a sense of utility) selects the 
most useful things which pertain to conviction and 
improvement. 

An old woman, who showed a house and pictures 
at Towcester, expressed herself in these words: 
"This is Sir Richard Farmer; he lived in the coun- 
try, took care of his estate, built this house and paid 
for it, managed it well, saved money, and died rich. 
That is his son ; he was made a lord, took a place at 
court, spent his estate, and died a beggar !" A very 
concise, but full and striking account, says Dr. Home. 
Here clearness and brevity are conspicuous; great 
qualities to master! 

As 'tis a greater mystery in the art 
Of painting to foreshorten any part 
Than draw it out ; so 'tis in books the chief 
Of all perfections to be plain and brief. 

Juniper Hedgehog wrote of the Bishop of Exeter : 
"What a lawyer was spoiled in that bishop ! What 
a brain he has for cobwebs! How he drags you 
along through sentence after sentence — every one a 
dark passage — until your head swims !"* Character- 
izing with effect the darkness which prevails where 
perspicuity is absent. 

* Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, No. 8. July, 1845. 



88 PUBLIC SPEAKING- AND DEBATE. 

Brevity and precision are oftener manifested among 
our French neighbors than among ourselves. The 
speeches made to mobs, the most hurried placards, 
abound in the felicities of condensation. Europe has 
for some time been agitated with communism. Few 
Englishmen could tell you what is meant by it. Yet 
nearly a century ago Morelly thus expressed it : " It 
is the solution of this excellent problem : to find a 
situation in which it shall be nearly impossible for 
man to be depraved or bad." We have never on 
this side the channel approached the felicity of this 
reply. 

As a model of the old, simple, and manly Saxon 
tongue, the student may consult the writings of 
the author of the "Pilgrim's Progress." If all that 
Mr. Macaulay avers be true, the works of the Bedford 
tinman deserve special attention. The style of Bun- 
yan, *says Macaulay, is delightful to every reader, and 
invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to 
obtain a wide command over the English language. 
The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common 
people. There is not an expression, if we except a 
few terms in theology, which would puzzle the rudest 
peasant. We have observed several pages which do 
not contain a single word of more than two syllables. 
Yet no writer has said more exactly what he wanted 
to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement 
exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose 
of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely 
dialect, this dialect of plain working-men was suffi- 
cient. There is no book in our literature on which we 
would so readily stake the fame of the old unpol- 
luted English language, no book which shows so 
well how rich that language is in its own proper 



STYLE. 89 

wealth, and how little it has been improved by all 
that it has borrowed. 

In the first edition of " Practical Grammar," the 
author fell into this vagueness. If remarks had to be 
made at the end of the statement, it was directed that 
they should be neither " too strong nor too tedious." 
But when he subsequently asked his class at the City 
Mechanics' Institution, at what point of effectiveness 
a man might be said to be too strong, it was agreed 
that there was error somewhere. And the injunction 
not to be " too tedious," was found to imply that we 
might»be tedious in some degree, which hardly seemed 
desirable. Then it was asked, " What is Strength ?" 
Some answered, " Power." What was Power ? 
Some said, "Effectiveness." But it was soon felt 
that these definitions left us like Swift's definition of 
style, that it was the use of proper words in proper 
places. What were proper words and proper places, 
still remained open questions. So if power was 
strength, and strength effectiveness, what was effect- 
iveness was still unknown. It was finally agreed that 
to be strong was to be just, and to avoid being tedious 
was to be brief. We therefore agreed that " remarks 
just and brief" were the proper characterization. 
For what was just could never be too strong, and 
what was brief could never be too tedious. From 
which we also learned that the secret of the strength 
of comment lay in just sentiments, and that tedium 
was the tiresome progeny of prolixity. 



90 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

SIMILES. 

Paracelsus announced what Cogan reiterated, that 
" it is as necessary to know evil as good ; for who can 
know what is good without knowing what is evil?" 
This principle of contrast is that upon which truth 
depends for its development and effect for its power. 
It is the principle on which similes are founded. 

To preserve peace and to do good is a very old 
maxim of morality. Feltham thus enforces it: 
"When two goats on a narrow bridge met over a 
deep stream, was not he the wiser that lay down for 
the other to pass over him, rather than he that would 
hazard both their lives by contending ? He preserved 
himself from danger, and made the other become 
debtor to him for his safety. I will never think my- 
self disparaged either by preserving peace or doing 
good." This comparison elevates the sentiment, re- 
lieves its repetition from triteness, and gives it the 
freshness of truth. 

Paine, whom I have heard Ebenezer Elliot describe 
as a great master of metaphor, said of a certain body 
in America, that at the very instant that they are ex- 
claiming against the mammon of this world, they are 
nevertheless hunting after it with a step as steady as 
time, and an appetite as keen as death. The immu- 
table insatiableness sought to be characterized is ren- 
dered much more evident by these similes. It will 
be observed that the contrast implied in similes is not 
absolute ; it is the comparison of a lesser degree with 



SIMILES. 91 

a greater, which marks the idea to be enforced. This 
is seen in the saying of Dumont to the effect that 
" Both the Kolands felt convinced that Freedom conld 
never flourish in France, and spring np a goodly tree, 
under the shadow of a throne." It is further seen in 
the remark of Mirabeau, who, when asked to counsel 
an obstinate friend, answered: "You might as well 
make an issue in a wooden leg as give him advice." 
The same principle is observable in the observation 
of Emerson at the soiree of the Manchester Athe- 
neum, at which he spoke. Expressing the latent 
strength of Old England, he said she "had still a 
pulse like a cannon." The felicity of the simile was 
perfect. The same person, denoting the freshness of 
style of Montaigne, said the words, if you cut them, 
they would bleed. The " Cork Magazine " says that 
the preface of Thomas Davis to the speeches of Cur- 
ran is, in some parts, as majestic as the orations which 
it prefaces; in others, displaying a wild pathos 
which "strikes upon the ear like the cry of a 
woman." 

It does not appear to me to be necessary to enter 
:nto the usual enumeration of the various figures of 
speech specially set forth in rhetorics. Under the 
principle of comparison so wide a range of illustra- 
tion is included as to be sufficient for the use of the 
rhetorician. Nothing, we are told, so works on the 
human mind, barbarous or civilized, as a new sym- 
bol. Metaphor is the majestic ground of enforce- 
ment, and its occupation is as extensive as its power. 
It is by this means the poverty of language is en- 
riched by the eloquence of the universe, and the 
whole of inanimate nature admitted into society with 
man. 



92 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, 

And tell in a garland their loves and cares ; 

Each blossom that blooms in their garden-bowers 
On its leaves a mystic language bears. 

Comparisons are implied by phrases. An instance 
occurs in Newman's works, where he says : " Heresy 
did but precipitate the truths before held in solution." 
The allusion is chemical, but very happy. Symbols 
expressed or implied were the weapons of Mirabeau. 
Contempt for the men-millinery of literature was 
never more forcibly expressed than in these .words of 
his: "My style readily assumes force, and I have a 
command of strong expressions; but if I want to be 
mild, unctuous, and measured, I become insipid, and 
my flabby style makes me sick." Dumont, a friend 
of Mirabeau's, recounting his own editorial experi- 
ence in preserving brevity and a wise directness in 
his journal, says : " The most diffuse complained of our 
reducing their dropsical and turgescent expressions." 

By some comparisons all the power of condensation 
is realized. Grattan, comparing the Irish Parliament 
to a departed child, exclaimed: "I have sat by its 
cradle, and I followed its hearse." There is here all 
the grandeur of eloquence and grief. 

In the "Auditor," Lord Viscount Barrington was 
described as a little squirrel of state, who had been 
busy all his life in the cage, without turning it round to 
any human purpose. The clearness attained by this 
simile needs no explanation. Severity can be con- 
veyed with equal ease, as instanced in Judge Hali- 
burton's asseveration, that humility is the dress-coat 
of pride. 

It is a trite remark, that men draw their symbols 
from those departments of science or life with which 



SIMILES. 93 

they are most familiar. The Greeks filled their lan- 
guage with geometrical allusions. Lieutenant Le- 
count, the well-known mathematician, having occa- 
sion to describe a wound, says : " One of the latest 
cases was a man with a round ulcer, about two and a 
half inches in diameter, on one side of his leg, and 
an oval one, five inches by two and a half, on the 
other side."* 

When Mr. Mould, the undertaker in "Nicholas 
Nickleby," speaks of Shakspeare, it is as the theatri- 
cal poet who was buried at Stratford. But it matters 
-not whence the similes are drawn, provided they are 
appropriate. In a sermon preached at Newgate after 
the escape of Jack Sheppard, the clergyman dis- 
coursed to this effect: " How dexterously did he pick 
the padlock of his chain with a crooked nail ; burst 
his fetters asunder; climb up the chimney; wrench 
out an iron bar ; break his way through a stone wall ; 
make the strong door of a dark entry fly before him ; 
reach the leads of the prison ; fix a blanket to the 
wall with a spike stolen from the chapel ; descend to 
the top of the turner's house ; cautiously pass down 
stairs, and make his escape at the street door. 

"I shall spiritualize these things. Let me exhort 
ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the 
nail of repentance ; burst asunder the fetters of your 
beloved lusts ; mount the chimney of hope ; take 
thence the bar of good resolution ; break through the 
stone wall of despair and all the strongholds in the 
dark entry of the valley of the shadow of death 
raise yourselves to the leads of divine meditation 
fix the blanket of faith with the spike of the Church 
let yourselves down to the turner's house of resigna 

* "Midland Observer," March, 1844. 



94 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

tion ; descend the stairs of humility. So shall you 
come to the door of deliverance from the prison of 
iniquity, and escape from the clutches of that old ex- 
ecutioner the devil, who goeth," etc., etc.* 

The child when he first learns to speak will say 
anything, thinking he accomplishes much in continu- 
ing to talk. So with the public speaker when he 
first commences, and so with the early efforts of the 
young writer. He knows nothing of symbolic beauty 
or rhetorical proportion; he does not suspect that 
there are gaudy images and encumbering ornaments. 
"When he first rises above the level of plain prose, he* 
never knows when to descend to the earth ; and in- 
stead of finding an elevation whence he can show 
his readers a wider landscape and new objects, he 
thinks he does enough by showing himself. 

Prodigality of metaphors, like multitudes of super- 
latives, confound meaning. " It is an idle fancy of 
some," says Felton, " to run out perpetually upon si- 
militudes, confounding their subject by the multitude 
of likenesses, and making it like so many things that 
it is like nothing at all." 

The general rule to be observed is obvious. When 
we intend to elevate a subject, we must choose meta-. 
phors which are lofty or sublime. If our purpose is to 
degrade, the similes which sink the subject to contempt 
or ridicule are proper for employment. These are 
the two poles of tendency. A member of the In- 
diana Legislature has said : " Mr. Speaker — The wolf 
is the most ferocious animal that prowls in our west- 
ern prairies, or runs at large in the forests of Indiana. 
He creeps from his lurking-place at the hour of mid- 

* Volume of Trials of Criminals, printed at Leeds, 1809, for J. Da- 
vies, by Edward Baines. 



PLEASANTRY. 95 

night when all nature is locked in the silent embraces 
of Morpheus, and ere the portals of the east are un- 
barred, or bright Phoebus rises in all his golden maj- 
esty, whole litters of pigs are destroyed." "Wanting 
sustainment, these figures end in the ridiculous.* 



CHAPTER XII. 

PLEASANTRY. 

I offer only a few suggestions on this subject. The 
happiest vein of pleasantry is needed to pen a suita- 
ble essay upon it. If men of wit and humor would 
analyze the sources of their inspirations, pleasantry 
might be taught as an art. And why not ? Recrea- 
tion is an element of health, a component of human 
nature, the third estate of life. It ought to have its 
professors and cultivators. 

A comedian went to America and remained there 
two years, leaving his wife dependent on her rela- 
tives. Mrs. F tt, expatiating in the greenroom 

on the cruelty of such conduct, the comedian found 
a warm advocate in a well-known dramatist. "I 
have heard," says the latter, " that he is the kindest 
of men, and I know that he writes to his wife every 
packet." " Yes, he writes," replied Mrs. F., " a parcel 
of flummery about the agony of absence, but he has 
never remitted her a shilling. Do you call that kind- 
ness ?" " Decidedly," replied the author, " unremit- 
ting kindness." Here the wit turns upon words. 
tes a converse ins 

* See Note G, page 113. 



96 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

heard of a boy who, being rebuked by a clergyman 
for neglecting to go to church, replied that he would 
go if he could be permitted to change his seat. ' But 
why do you wish to change your seat V said the min- 
ister. 'You see,' said the boy, 'I sit over the oppo- 
site side of the meeting-house, and between me and 
you there's Judy Vicars and Mary Staples, and half 
a dozen other women, with their mouths wide open, 
and they get all the best of the sermon, and when it 
comes to me it's pretty poor stuff.' " 

" Wit is the philosopher's quality, humor the poet's ; 
the nature of wit relates to things ; humor to persons. 
Wit utters brilliant truths, humor delicate deductions 
from the knowledge of individual character. Roche- 
foucault is witty, the Yicar of Wakefield the model 
of humor."* 

English humor is frank, hearty, and unaffected. 
Irish light as mercury. It sets propriety at defiance. 
It is extravagant. Scotch humor is sly, grave, and 
caustic. Surely .the analysis of Pleasantry is possible, 
and its cultivation practicable. 

Many persons never think of pleasantry as an agent 
of relief in exposition, and of effect in many depart- 
ments of enforcement. Some worry jokes to death. 
A man who runs after witticisms is in danger of 
making himself a buffoon.f Some speakers are so 
beset with the love of this display that they virtually 
announce to their audiences that the smallest laugh 
would be thankfully received. A degree of wit per- 
tains to all topics. That which lies in our way is that 
which is relevant. 

* Bulwer's Student. f See Note H, page 175. 



ENERGY. 97 

CHAPTEK Xin. 

ENERGY. 

Energy is the soul of oratory, arftl energy depends 
on health. Dr. Samuel Johnson, with that strong 
sense for which he was distinguished, once said, we 
can be useful no longer than we are well. Of the 
rhetorician it may as safely be said that he is effective 
no longer than he is well. A variety of arts may be 
pursued in indifferent health ; feebleness only pro- 
longs execution ; in rhetoric it mars the whole work. 
Even in the matter of efficient thinking health is 
worth attention. The senses being the great inlets 
of knowledge, it is necessary that they be kept in 
health. It will be idle to conceal from ourselves that 
the physical is the father of the moral man. " Morals 
depend upon temperaments."* 

The patience necessary for investigation cannot be 
preserved with impaired nerves. Long-continued 
wakefulness is capable of changing the temper and 
mental disposition of the most mild and gentle, of 
effecting a complete alteration of their features, and 
at length of occasioning the most singular whims, the 
strangest deviations in the power of imagination, and 
in the end absolute insanity. 

It may not be necessary, because Carneades took 
copious doses of hellebore as a preparative to refuting 
the dogmas of the Stoics, or because Dry den, when he 
had a grand design, took physic and parted with 
blood, that the searcher after truth should commence 

* Edward Johnson — Life, Health, and Disease. 

7 



98 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

with an aperient ; yet it will be useful that some at- 
tention be paid to the physiology of the 

— ■ — — -intellect, whose use 



Depends so much upon the gastric juice. 

The public will remember the case of an ex-occu- 
pant of the woolsack who, after " six days' indisposi- 
tion," attempted the annihilation of Lord Aberdeen 
on account of his Scotch Church Bill. The "Times," 
with some satire, expressed in reference to it much 
truth. "¥e recognize the deep interest of the public 
in Lord B.'s medicine chest. We pray him to take 
care of himself for all our sakes. We entirely enter 
into the feelings of a man who, after suffering six 
days under dyspepsia, bile, or otherwise, rushes into 
the House of Lords to avenge upon some minister the 
disarrangement of his system. The castigation of a 
secretary of state is an interesting incident in his 
disorder, a gratifying palliative of his discomfort, but 
it is, after all, in Epsom salts or quinine that the true 
and only effectual remedy must be found. "* 

Perhaps the lowest quality of the art of oratory, 
but one on many occasions of the first importance, is 
a certain robust and radiant physical health ; great 
volumes of animal heat. In the cold thinness of a 
morning audience, mere energy and mellowness is 
inestimable; wisdom and learning would be harsh 
and unwelcome compared with a substantial man, 
who is quite a house-warming. I do not rate this 
animal life very high ; yet, as we must be fed and 
warmed before we can do any work well, so is this 
necessary. f It often happens that you cannot come 
into collision with opinion without coming into col- 
* " Times," June 29, 1843. f Emerson. 



ENERGY. 99 

lision with persons. What would Danton have been 
without his cannon voice. When Mirabeau spoke, his 
voice was like the voice of destiny. He seemed as if 
moulded to be the orator of nature. The wise orator 
will as much attend to the exercise which gives him 
health, as to the exercise which gives him skill. We 
go to the oratorio to hear sublime sentiments set to 
the music of art; we go to the orator to hear them 
enforced by the music of nature. Oratory is the 
personal ascendancy of opinion. Without physical 
fascination it descends to mere eloquence of words. 
Intellect moves the scholar only. Oratory moves 
the illiterate to noble deeds. 

When traveling expenses were the only payment 
I received for my lectures, I used to walk to the 
place of their delivery. On my walk from Birming- 
ham to Worcester, a distance of twenty-six miles, it 
was my custom to recite on the way portions of my 
intended address. In the early part of my walk my 
voice was clear, and thoughts ready ; but toward the 
end I could scarcely articulate, or retain the thread 
of my discourse. If I lectured the same evening, as 
sometimes happened, I spoke without connection or 
force. The reason was that I had exhausted my 
strength on the way. One Saturday I walked from 
Sheffield to Huddersfielcl to deliver on the Sunday 
two anniversary lectures. It was my first appearance 
there, and I was ambitious to acquit myself well. 
But in the morning I was utterly unable to do more 
than talk half inaudibly and quite incoherently. In 
the evening I was tolerable, but my voice was weak. 
My annoyance was excessive. I was a paradox to 
myself. My power seemed to come and go by some 
eccentric law of its own. I did not find out till years 



100 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

after that the utter exhaustion of my strength had 
exhausted the powers of speech and thought, and 
that entire repose instead of entire fatigue should 
have been the preparation for public speaking. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ELOQUENCE. 

" The histories of old times, and even of not very- 
distant ones, acquaint us with the wondrous effects 
of eloquence upon whole multitudes', carried away 
to far crusades by the oratory of a hermit ; and even 
upon grave political assemblies and parliaments, 
which an able speaker could twist, turn, and persuade 
according to fantasy, so that majorities hung upon 
his words. There is no such .things now-a-days. 
Audiences are neither so pliable nor so soft; and 
eloquence, however mighty, fails in carrying convic- 
tions by storm. Perhaps this is the reason why so 
few public men of the present day fall into the mis- 
take of striving or affecting to be eloquent. 

"Persuasion, in fact, is now a long-winded and 
tedious task. The winning of an audience, of a party ; 
the inculcating an idea, the disseminating it ; the win- 
ning conviction first, and getting up the enthusiasm 
after, is now a slow work, almost like the dropping 
of a seed, and patiently waiting till it grows, in order 
to foster it, water it, protect its growth, and enjoy 
its expansion into the stem and the flower ; sncli is 
the political eloquence of modern times. He who 



ELOQUENCE. 101 

discovered it, and who practices it, is Richard Cob- 
den."* 

This is a fair history of modern eloquence ; but it 
is hardly true that Mr. Cobden " discovered " it.. 
He has been its greatest illustrator, but it has grown 
with the growth and commercial character of the na- 
tion. Long before Cobden's time, # the magic fancy 
of Burke, the glittering sophistries of Pitt, the thun- 
dering declamation of Fox, were all alike founded 
upon the general and lasting truth of things — upon 
profound views — upon the inexhaustible resources of 
the understanding. The king of transcendentalists has 
said that "Eloquence must first be plainest narrative 
or statement ; afterward it may warm itself until it 
exhales symbols of every kind, and speaks only 
through the most poetic forms ; but at first and last 
it must still be, at bottom, a statement of facts. All 
audiences soon ask, ' What is he driving at V and if 
this man does not stand for anything, he will be de- 
serted, "f This writer has given us the most eloquent 
version of eloquence extant. The substance of his 
views is as follows : " First, then, the orator must be 
a substantial person ; then the first of his special 
weapons is, doubtless, power of statement; to have 
the fact and to know how to tell it. Next, is that 
method or power of arrangement which constitutes 
the genius and efficacy of all remarkable men. Next 
to this is the power of imagery. Nothing so works 
on the human mind, barbarous or civilized, as a new 
symbol. The power of dealing with facts, of illumin- 
ating them, of sinking them by ridicule or diversion 
of mind, rapid generalization, humor, wit, and pathos, 
all these are keys which the orator holds ; yet these 

* "Daily News," No. 522. f Emerson. 



102 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

foreign gifts are not eloquence, and do often hinder a 
man from the attainment of it. To come to the heart 
of the mystery, the truly eloquent is an excited man 
with power to communicate his excitement. Arm a 
man with all the talents just enumerated, so potent 
and so charming, and he has equal power to ensnare 
and mislead, as to .instruct and guide you. A specta- 
cle we may go round the world to see, is a man who, 
in the prosecution of great designs, has absolute com- 
mand of the means of representing his ideas, keeps 
the grasp of a lion on his materials, and the eye of a 
king to dispose them right, never for an instant light 
minded or insane. But, in the great triumph of the 
orator, we must have something more ; we must have 
a certain reinforcing of the man from the events, so 
as to have the double force of reason and destiny. 
The eloquent man is not he who has beautiful speech, 
but he who is inwardly and desperately drunk with 
a certain belief, agitating and tearing him, perhaps 
almost bereaving him of the power of articulation. 
Then it rushes from him, in short abrupt screams, in 
torrents of meaning. The possession of his mind by 
the subject is so entire, that it insures an ardor of ex- 
pressions which is the ardor of nature itself; and so 
is the ardor of the greatest force, and inimitable by 
any art. Add to this a certain regnant calmness, 
which in all the tumult never utters a premature 
syllable, and keeps the secret of his means and 
method, and the orator stands before the people as 
a demoniacal power, to whose miracles they have no 
key. Youth should lay the foundation of eloquence, 
not on popular arts, but on character and honesty. 
Let the sun look on nothing nobler than he, let him 
speak of the right, let him not borrow the language 



ELOQUENCE. 103 

of idle gentlemen or scholars, much less that of sens- 
ualists, absorbed in money or appetite ; but let him 
communicate every secret of strength and good-will 
communicated to his own heart, to animate men to 
better hopes ; let him speak for the absent, defend the 
friendless and defamed, the poor, the slave, the 
prisoner, and the lost. Let him look upon opposition 
as opportunity ; he is one who cannot be defeated or 
put down. Let him feel that it is not the people who 
are in fault for not being convinced, but he who can- 
not convince them. He has not only to neutralize 
their opposition — that were a small thing — but to 
convert them into apostles and publishers of the same 
wisdom." 

The only alteration I would make in this account 
is this : Instead of making eloquence a thing of de- 
gree, which confounds eloquence with oratory, I 
would mark the distinction. Eloquence belongs 
merely to words, oratory to the passion which fires 
them. The eloquence of intellect is that of speech, 
and sense, and symbol; but the oratory which so 
seldom greets the ears of men is the eloquence of the 
man. The philosopher only reaches the scholar, the 
orator reaches the mob. The philosopher talks the 
rhetoric of the schools, the orator the language of 
nature ; he speaks heart words — -that language which 
is wide as the world, which reaches humanity, which 
all nations understand, which the* deaf and dumb 
can feel — the language of gratitude, of gesture — that 
which moves us on canvas, breathes on marble. It 
is the burning word of passion. It knows no high, 
no low, no rich, no poor, no citizen, no alien, no for- 
eigner, no crime, no color. Savage and civilized, 
learned and illiterate, (the accidents of condition,) 



104 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

sink into insignificance when man speaks to man. 
The orator penetrates to the equality of humanity. It 
is in the equality of our common nature that a com- 
mon purpose originates. He alone who penetrates 
there inspires unanimity. It is when the multitude 
are of one opinion that the orator's power is revealed; 
that is the seal that nature stamps upon his genius. 

It is said that one day when Massillon was preach- 
ing upon the Passion before Louis XIY. and all the 
court, he so affected his hearers that everybody was 
in tears, except a citizen, who appeared as indifferent 
to what he heard as to what he saw. One of his 
neighbors, surprised at such insensibility, reproached 
him for it, and said to him, "How can you refrain 
from weeping, while we are all bathed in tears?" 
"That is not astonishing," answered the citizen, "I 
am not of this parish." The eloquence which I have 
endeavored to describe would have included this 
man also in the general weeping. To say that a 
touch of nature makes the whole world kin, is only 
another way of .saying, That "man is related to all 
nature." Eloquence discovers this relation. In the 
first remark, Shakspeare gives the effect, of which, 
in the second remark, Emerson has assigned the cause. 

With respect to passion, to which much importance 
has been assigned, it will be useful to remark, that 
though we must admit, with Lord Karnes, that the 
plainest man animated with passion affects us more 
than the greatest speaker without it, we must keep in 
view that the only passion tolerated among us is the 
passion of conviction.* All the rest is, to Englishmen, 
rant. The passion of conviction is modest, manly, 
and earnest. 

* See Note I, page 116. 



PREMEDITATION. 105 

CHAPTEE XV. 

PREMEDITATION. 

There is every reason to believe that the greatest 
masters of oratory have been most sensible of the 
value of, and have most practiced premeditation. It 
is only the young would-be speaker who expects to be 
great without effort, or whose vanity leads him to 
impose upon others the belief that he is so, who af- 
fects to despise the toil of preparation. One of the 
biographers of Canning tells us that it is remarkable 
that, with his broad sense of great faculties in others, 
he was himself fastidious to excess about the slightest 
turns of expression. He would correct his speeches 
and amend their verbal graces till he nearly polished 
out the original spirit. He was not singular in this. 
Burke, whom he is said to have closely studied, did the 
same. Sheridan always prepared his speeches; the 
highly-wrought passages in the speech on Hastings's 
impeachment were written beforehand and committed 
to memory ; and the differences were so marked*that 
the audience could readily distinguish between the 
extemporaneous passages and those that were pre- 
meditated. Mr. Canning's alterations were frequently 
so minute and extensive that the printers found it 
easier to recompose the matter afresh in type than to 
correct it. This difficulty of choice in diction some- 
times springs from Vembarras des richesses, but oftener 
from poverty of resources, and generally indicates a 
class of intellect whidi is more occupied with costume 
than ideas. But here are three instances which set 
all popular notions of verbal fastidiousness by the 



106 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

ears; for certainly Burke, Canning, and Sheridan 
were men of capacious talents ; and two of them at 
least present extraordinary samples of imagination 
and practical judgment, running together neck and 
neck in the race of life to the very goal. 

We owe the low state of oratory in this country, to 
a great extent, to the false contempt for " cut and 
dried speeches," till it has come to be considered a 
sign of weakness for a man to think before he speaks. 
Archbishop Whately has wisely cautioned young 
preachers against concluding that because the apostles 
spake well without premeditation, that others will speak 
so, unless, like the apostles, they are specially inspired* 

Perhaps, although we use the term, we never have 
had oratory in England. There is an essential differ- 
ence between oratory and debating ; oratory seems 
an accomplishment confined to the ancients, unless 
the French preachers may put in their claim, and 
some of the Irish lawyers. Mr. Shiel's speech in 
Kent was a fine oration ; and the boobies who taunted 
him with having got it by rote were not aware that 
in doing so he only wisely followed the example of 
Perieles, Demosthenes, Lycias, Isocrates, Hortensius, 
Cicero, Cesar, and every great orator of antiquity.f 

It has been said by a popular writer that Demos- 
thenes not only prompts to vigorous measures, but 
teaches how they are to be carried into execution. 
His orations are strongly animated, and full of 
the impetuosity and ardor of public spirit. His 
composition is not distinguished by ornament and 
splendor. It is an energy of thought, peculiarly 
his own, which forms his character and raises him 
above his species. He appears not to attend to 

* See Note J, page 11 1. f "Young Duke," by B. D'Israeli. 



PREMEDITATION. 107 

words, but to things. We forget the orator and think 
of the subject. He has no parade and ostentation, 
no studied introduction ; but is like a man full of his 
subject, who, after preparing his audience by a 
sentence or two for the reception of plain truths, 
enters directly on business. 

Blair should have said Demosthenes had no elab- 
orate exordiums. They were " studied," as is proved 
by their pertinency and fitness. Demades says that 
Demosthenes spoke better on some few occasions 
when he spoke unpremeditatedly.* Probably he spoke 
well in some of these instances, but it was the result 
of power acquired by premeditation. As a general 
rule, he who thinks twice before speaking once will 
speak twice the better for it. 

When Macaulay was about to address the House 
of Commons, his anxious and restless manner betrayed 
his intention. Still he was regardless of the laugh 
of the witlings, and continued intent on his effort. 
This is the real courage that does things well ; the cour- 
age that is neither laughed nor frowned from its purpose. 

Macaulay ■ spoke early in the evening, before the 
jarring of the debate confused him or long attention 
enfeebled his powers. Only the ignorant despise 
attention to minute details. When the great Lord 
Chatham was to appear in public he took much pains 
about his dress, and latterly he arranged his flannels 
in graceful folds. It need not then detract from our 
respect for Erskine, that on all occasions he desired 
to look smart, and that when he went down into the 
country on special retainers, he anxiously had recourse 
to all manner of innocent little artifices to aid his 
purpose. He examined the court the night before 

*See Note K, page 179. 



108 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

the trial, in order to select the most advantageous 
place for addressing the jury. On the cause being 
called, the crowded audience were perhaps kept 
waiting a few minutes before the celebrated stranger 
made his appearance ; and when at length he grati- 
fied their impatient curiosity, a particularly nice wig 
and a pair of new yellow gloves distinguished and 
embellished his person beyond the ordinary costume 
of the barrister of the circuit.* 

Amid the applause in this chapter bestowed upon 
premeditation, it would not be just to omit the ridi- 
cule with which it has been visited by the Rev. Sidney 
Smith : " It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart 
that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What 
can be more ludicrous than an orator delivering stale 
indignation and fervor of a week old? turning over 
whole pages of violent passions, written out in Ger- 
man text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into 
which he is hurried by the ardor of his mind, and so 
affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is 
unable to proceed any further ?" True, " it is only 
by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can 
be very powerfully affected." But nature is always 
fresh, and he who reproduces nature will always 
affect. Macready never stabbed his daughter to 
preserve her honor; yet every man is moved at 
his Yirginius. As Othello, Macready's "indigna- 
tion " at Iago is thirty years old, yet we are as much 
affected by its intensity as on the first day when he 
displayed it. The speech of Antony over the dead 
body of Cesar was " written in German text " in the 
days of Elizabeth ; it was " cut and dried " two hund- 
red years ago ; yet, whatever our satirical canon may 
* Campbell's Lives of the Chancelors. 



KEALITY. 109 



say to the contrary, it ceases not to affect us now. A 
great idea well expressed, or a deep feeling naturally 
portrayed, is " a thing of beauty and a joy forever." 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

EEALITT. 

It was said by Panchand that Mirabeau was the 
first man in the world to speak upon a question he 
knew nothing about. But Mirabeau had the confi- 
dence which enabled him to abandon himself to the 
reality of occasions, and he read the lessons they 
brought with them, while other men went to books ; 
and, as reality is the most powerful teacher, he was 
wiser than the encyclopediasts. 

I believe there are no difficulties in the moral or 
political world, no problem of events, which do not 
also bring their solutions with them, were we cool 
enough to read them ; but we never trust ourselves 
to events ; we do not believe what we see, or will not 
see what is before us. We make preconceived opin- 
ions, predetermined judgment, overrule new facts. 
We too often act the part of the man who is so much 
in love with his bark that he never ventures to sail 
in it. This is the course to be taken : scan the truth, 
and having learned it, trust to subsequent events to 
illustrate it. 

In the premeditation which I have commended I 
do not mean to exclude extempore application of the 
faculties. An orator should go to the rostrum to 



110 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

announce conclusions, not to form them. In this I 
persist ; but having laid the scene, I would leave him 
free to manage it as he pleased. Let him take 
advantage of the tide of feeling, temper, and excla- 
mations of the meeting; but unless he is lirm in a 
previous purpose, these things will take advantage of 
him and carry him away from his subject, instead of 
his carrying away the audience. 

Hie Bhodus; hie salta.* Do not wait for a change 
of outward circumstances, but take your circum- 
stances as they are, and make the best of them. This 
saying, which was meant to shame a braggart, will 
admit of a very different and profounder application. 
Goethe has changed the postulate of Archimedes, 
" Give me a standing-place, and I will move the 
world," into the precept, " Make good thy standing- 
place, and move the world." This is what he did 
throughout his life.f 

Abandonment to reality is the source of presence 
of mind, an indispensable element of oratorical great- 
ness. It is storied that Frederic the Great being in- 
formed of the death of one of his chaplains, a man of 
considerable learning and piety, and determining 
that his successor should not be behind him in these 
qualifications, he told a candidate about to preach a 
trial sermon at the Royal Chapel that he would him- 
self furnish him with a text from which he was to 
make an extempore sermon. The clergyman accepted 
the proposition. The whim of such a probationary 
discourse was spread abroad, and at an early hour the 
Royal Chapel was crowded to excess. The king ar- 
rived at the end of the prayers, and, on the candidate 

* "Here is Rhodes; leap here."— Old Fable. 
f Guesses at Truth. By two Brothers. 



REALITY. Ill 

ascending the pulpit, one of his majesty's aids-de- 
camp presented him with a sealed paper. The 
preacher opened it, and found nothing written therein. 
He did not, however, in so critical a moment, lose his 
presence of mind ; but turning the paper on both 
sides, he said : " My brethren, here is nothing, and 
there is nothing; out of nothing God created all 
things ;" and he proceeded to deliver an admirable 
discourse upon the wonders of the creation. This 
man deserved the appointment. 

A good converse story is told in Chambers's Scot- 
tish Jest Book, of a minister who had a custom of writ- 
ing the heads of his discourse on small slips of paper, 
which he placed on the Bible before him, to be used 
in succession. One day, when he was explaining the 
second head, he got a little warm in the harness, and 
came down with such a thump upon the Bible with 
his hand that the ensuing slip fell over the edge of 
the pulpit, though unperceived hj himself. On 
reaching the end of his second head he looked down 
for the third slip ; but, alas ! it was not to be found. 
"Thirdly," he cried, looking round him with great 
anxiety. After a little pause, " Thirdly," again he 
exclaimed ; but still no thirdly appeared. " Thirdly," 
I say, my brethren," pursued the bewildered clergy- 
man ; but not another word could he utter. At this 
point, while the congregation were partly sympathiz- 
ing in his distress, and partly rejoicing in such a de- 
cisive instance of the impropriety of using notes in 
preaching, which has always been an unpopular thing 
in the Scotch clergy, an old woman rose up and thus 
addressed the preacher: "If I'm no mista'en, sir, I 
saw thirdly flee out at the east window a quarter of 
an hour syne." It is impossible for any but a Scotch- 



112 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

man to conceive how much -this account of the loss of 
thirdly was relished by that part of the congregation 
which condemned the use of notes. 

Before writing or speaking, it is of great service to 
try the matter over by telling it to a critical friend, 
or explaining it to some one utterly ignorant of it. By 
these trials of reality objections may be learned, im- 
pediments to conviction be discovered, and simplicity 
of enunciation acquired. If you have to speak of 
topics before thus maturing your power over them, 
supply a relay of telling points, so that when co- 
herency fails you, you can have recourse to a striking 
thought. Few will discover its want of relevance. 
The majority always mistake brilliancy for eloquence. 
But remember, this expedient will only save you with 
the vulgar ; the well-informed are not thus to be im- 
posed on. 

The neglect of the study of reality is, perhaps, no- 
where so apparent as in the construction of contro- 
versial books. Authors satisfy themselves with invent- 
ing the arguments of their opponents, when the easi- 
est and most satisfactory course is to extract the most 
powerful reasoning the other side has produced. By 
this course real objectors could be answered instead 
of imaginary ones. The neglect of this precaution 
was strikingly manifested in a work published some 
time ago entitled " Torrington Hall." 



EFFECTIVENESS. 118 



CHAPTEK XYII. 

EFFECTIVENESS. 

Effectiveness lies in proportion . Not in the beauty 
of a pillar or the finish of a frieze, but in the com- 
mand which the whole building has over the specta- 
tor^ and not in the brilliance of a passage, but in 
the coherence of the whole, lies the effectiveness of a 
speech or a book. 

Foremost in effectiveness stands purpose. Better 
say nothing than not to the purpose. Nothing should 
attract the main attention to itself. The chief merit 
of any part is its subserviency to the whole design. 
When parts are praised, a speaker is said to have bril- 
liance ; when the whole impresses, he is said to have 
power. 

" The editor of Shelley's posthumous poems apolo- 
gizes for the publication of some fragments in a very 
incomplete state, by remarking how much more than 
every other poet of the present day every line and 
word he wrote is instinct with beauty. Let no man 
sit down to write with the purpose of making every 
line and word beautiful and peculiar. The only effect 
of such an endeavor will be to corrupt his judgment 
and confound his understanding."* 

A few generalities may be mentioned, attention to 
which will conduce to effectiveness. Avoid rant, 
study simplicity, abjure affectation, be natural. The 
natural voice is heard the farthest, and the natural 
affects the soonest. " The costly charm of the ancient 

* Henry Taylor. Preface to Philip Van Artevelde. 
8 



114 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

tragedy, and, indeed, of all the old literature, is that 
the persons speak simply, speak as persons who have 
great good sense without knowing it."* Nothing as- 
tonishes men so much as common sense and plain 
dealing. Earnestness and simplicity carry all before 
them. On Thiers's first appearance in the French 
Chamber, he experienced an almost universally un 
favorable reception, from certain personal peculiari- 
ties, over the effect of which he soon triumphed. In 
person Thiers is almost diminutive, with an expres- 
sion of countenance, though intellectual, reflective, 
and sarcastic, far from possessing the traits of beauty. 
The face itself, small in form, as befits the body, is 
encumbered with a pair of spectacles so large, that 
when peering over the marble edge of the long nar- 
row pulpit, called the tribune, whence all speakers 
address the Chamber, it is described as appearing sus- 
pended to the two orbs of crystal. "With such an ex- 
terior, presenting something of the ludicrous, so fatal 
to the effect, especially in volatile France, M. Thiers, 
full of the impassioned eloquence of his favorite rev- 
olutionary orators, essayed to impart those thrilling 
emotions recorded of Mirabeau. The attempt pro- 
voked derision, but only for a moment. In his new 
sphere, as in the others he had passed through, he soon 
outshone competition. .Subsiding into the oratory nat- 
ural to him, simple, vigorous, and rapid, he approved 
himself one of the most formidable of parliamentary 
champions. 

Bentham has made a wise remark on prolixity 
which may teach the student a just use in the meas- 
ure of words. " Prolixity," says Bentham, " may be 
where redundancy is not. Prolixity may arise not 

* Emerson. 



EFFECTIVENESS. 115 

only from the multifarious insertion of unnecessary- 
articles, but from the conservation of too many neces- 
sary ones in a sentence ; as a workman may be overladen 
not only with rubbish, which is of no use for him to 
carry, but with materials the most useful and neces- 
sary, when heaped up in loads too heavy for him at 
once. The point is, therefore, to distribute the mate- 
rials of the several divisions of the fabric into parcels 
that may be portable without fatigue. There is a 
limit to the lifting powers of each man, beyond which 
all attempts only charge him with a burden to him 
immovable. There is in like manner a limit to the 
grasping power of man's apprehension, beyond which 
if you add article to article, the whole shrinks from 
under his utmost efforts." "Too much is seldom 
enough," say the authors of "Guesses at Truth." 
" Pumping after your bucket is full prevents it keep- 
ing so." 

Proportion of time as well as proportion of parts is 
essential, both for the sake of the speaker's strength, 
as well as the hearer's patience. Whitefield is re- 
ported to have said, that a man, with the eloquence of 
an angel, ought not to exceed forty minutes in the 
length of a sermon, and it is well known that Wesley sel- 
dom exceeded thirty. "I have almost always found," 
says another eminent preacher, " that the last fifteen 
'minutes of a sermon an hour in length was worse than 
lost, both upon the speaker and congregation." There 
is practical wisdom in these remarks. A man who de- 
termines to speak but a short time is more likely to 
command the highest energy for his effort, and to speak 
with sustained power. Half an hour is time enough 
for immortality. Mirabeau achieved it by efforts of 
less duration. 



116 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Here it may be observed that* a man who intends 
to be brief and comprehensive will seldom need notes 
to assist him. In eases where time cannot be com- 
manded to master the subject in the memory, notes 
are better than the risk of anxiety or forgetful- 
ness. Generally speaking, a subject deeply felt and 
fully understood will make itself a place in the 
memory. 

The chief quality in the success of the late Sir 
William Follett consisted in his confining himself to 
what he understood. This was the basis on which 
his tact rested. He knew where his strength lay, 
and kept there. Of the "Lowell Offering," pub- 
lished by Knight some time since, the "Times" said: 
"It is the production of factory girls in Lowell, the 
American Manchester, and we much doubt if all the 
duchesses in England could write as much and so 
seldom offend against good taste. The secret of these 
girls' success in writing arises from their writing 
only about what they know — common life and their 
own affairs." He who seeks any kind of effective- 
ness will do well to remember the incidental lesson 
conveyed in these words. A frequent cause of fail- 
ure with young lecturers, is neglecting to find a point 
of common understanding between themselves and 
their auditors. They do not comprehend the phi- 
losophy of exordium. Much rhetorical wisdom may 
be gathered from the mathematician's example. We 
know that the geometer would in vain reason with 
others unless axioms were previously agreed upon for 
reference. So with an audience. If they do not 
agree with the speaker as to the premises from which 
he reasons, the audience have no standard by which 
they can test his conclusions. Hence, though he 



EFFECTIVENESS. 117 

may # confound them, yet he will never convince 
them. 

It is in this sense that those who would improve 
the public must "write down" to the public. They 
may, and they ought to elevate the public by their 
sentiments, but they must found their reasoning on 
what the populace understand and admit, or they 
reason in vain. The people must be taken at what 
they are, and elevated to what they should be. 

Young men, poetical from ardor and enthusiastic 
from passion rather than principle, will often rush 
from libraries crammed with lore, with which nobody 
else is familiar, and pour out before an audience 
what the speaker believes to be both sublime and 
impressive, but which his hearers cannot understand. 
They grow listless and restless, and he retires over- 
whelmed with a sense of failure. A. B., a young 
friend of considerable promise, thus failed in my 
presence. I endeavored thus to divert his despond- 
ency. 

" Failures," I urged, " are with heroic minds the 
stepping-stones to success." 

"Why have I not succeeded?" he asked; "I can 
never hope to say better things of my own than I 
said to-night of others." 

"The cause of your non-success is obvious; you 
commenced by addressing your auditors as men, and 
you left them as children. 

" A young preacher who had ascended the pulpit 
with great confidence, but who broke down in the 
middle of his sermon, was met by Rowland Hill as 
he was rushing from the pulpit. ' Young man,' said 
Rowland, ' had you ascended the pulpit in the spirit 
in which you descended, you would have descended 



118 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

in the spirit in which you ascended.' • Something of 
this kind will explain your case. In your exordium 
you should address your auditors as though they were 
children, state your arguments as though they were 
learners, and in your peroration only assume them to 
be men. On the threshold of a new subject men are 
as children ; during its unfoldment they are learners : 
only when the subject is mastered are they as men 
with manhood's power to execute their convictions. 
Had it struck you that probably no man of your audi- 
ence was familiar with the habits of society in the days 
of Spenser's 'Faery Queene,' or with the high and mys- 
tic imaginings of the solitary Paracelsus, would not the 
thought have caused you to recast your whole lecture? 
Take care that you do not render yourself amenable to 
the sarcasm of Swift, who, when Burnet said, speaking 
of the Scotch preachers in the time of the civil war, 
'The crowds were far beyond the capacity of their 
churches, or the reach of 'their voices,' Swift added, 
'And the preaching beyond the capacity of the 
crowd. I believe the church had as much capacity 
as the minister.'" 

The error of A. B. became evident to him. It is 
an error that many perpetually commit. In courts 
of equity the judges first distinguish by their ap- 
proval those young barristers who unfold a case 
with simplicity, and make lucid the points at issue. 
Auditors are the judges in popular assemblies, and 
their first applause is bestowed on the clear-headed 
speaker. 

Another source of failure is, that the young lec- 
turer is too little impressed with the wide application 
of the philosophy of controversy. The discipline of 
debate should enter into every oration. 



EFFECTIVENESS. 119 

It is for this reason that speaking requires to be in 
some degree verbose. In writing we may be brief, 
suggestive, and epigrammatic, because each word 
remains to be pondered over; but that which falls 
on the ear not being so permanent as that which 
falls on paper, fullness and many-lighted treatment is 
indispensable. 

The "Encyclopedia Metropolitana" has the fol- 
lowing practical synopsis of the leading character- 
istics which conduce to Effectiveness : "As regards 
the style which speakers should use for the public, it 
is clear that a style too terse is unintelligible to the 
majority; while the remedy usually adopted, that of 
using a prolix and amplifying mode of expression, is 
repugnant to the public, who never fail to desert a 
speaker who employs it. The better plan is to use 
brief and terse sentences, and often repeat the same 
idea, not by a mere substitution of terms, but by a 
different arrangement of the members, reversing the 
premises, or conclusion, etc., never forgetting in the 
repetition always to use terse sentences. Burke is 
for this an admirable model. 

" While it is always preferable to use short sen- 
tences, it must not be supposed that long sentences 
are always to be avoided. Long sentences, with a 
proper arrangement of their members, so that the 
audience may know what is aimed at, and not be 
compelled to reread, or call back to memory a sen- 
tence just uttered, are by no means obnoxious. If 
they induce trouble, by requiring a second reference, 
they cause ambiguity, because readers and auditors 
will not willingly give themselves this trouble. It is 
a common fault with authors to suppose a clause in- 
telligible because on their reading it appears to suit ■ 



120 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

but they forget that when they peruse it they know 
what is coming, which is more than can be expected 
of an audience. Hence it frequently happens that 
the best read and the best informed are frequently 
the worst expounders of their particular subjects of 
thought and study. 

" In laying before the public any exposition, it is 
absolutely essential to avoid all nice distinctions that 
please, and indeed are necessary to a discourse in the 
closet. The oration is similar to a large picture to be 
viewed at a distance, where nice lines are unseen, 
or perhaps annoying, while broad, nay, sometimes 
vulgar strokes are seen, admired, and consequently 
effective. 

" In preparing *for the press, as the style was in the 
former case reversed from the nicety of an essay, it 
must be again returned to its original propriety. 

" As regards delivery, it is not advisable to adopt 
any system of studied action, modulation of voice, or 
mimicry of others, but merely to thoroughly under- 
stand the subject; and reading or speaking, ac- 
cording to sense, allow nature to modulate the voice 
in her own way, which will inevitably be the 
best. 

"In speaking, it has often been a matter of deep 
and curious consideration that a person will explain 
his views to a single individual in such terms as to 
force conviction in many instances, and where he 
fails the exposition would be just such a one as would 
please an audience. It is notorious that what will 
not convince one or two will be most effective on 
many persons ; yet while he can succeed in the more 
difficult task with one or two, when he comes before 
an audience he is totally abashed, and cannot utter 



MASTERY. 121 

two consecutive sentences with propriety, energy, or 
sense. An analysis proves this bashfulness to be 
concomitant with other phenomena : 1. The increased 
liveliness of sympathy with numbers ; 2. The con- 
stant and free operation of this sympathy thus lively 
throughout the entire audience. The bashfulness of 
a speaker may therefore be attributable to intricate 
action and reaction of these several sympathies. There 
is, 1. The sympathy of the speaker with the audi- 
ence ; 2. The fact that the speaker knows how each 
individual sympathizes with him ; and, 3. The knowl- 
edge of the speaker of the great sympathy existing 
between all the members of the audience. 

" It is therefore necessary that the speaker should 
endeavor to lose sight of himself in the audience, and 
be guided and inspired wholly by the subject, having 
full confidence in his views and in the necessary rela- 
tions of things, to render an exposition so attempted 
perfectly successful. This is the reason that vulgar 
speakers so frequently succeed. Their very eccen- 
tricities and vulgarities show the honesty and earn- 
estness of purpose, and it is that that never fails to 
prosper." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

MASTERY. 

It is truly held by great teachers that the most 
useful lesson the young thinker has to master is to 
learn one thing at a time. Experience tells us that 
it is also the most difficult. He is initiated into 



122 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

the art of thinking (power of consecutiveness is the 
principal sign of this art) who can think of one thing 
at a time ; and he is master of the art who can think 
of any one thing when he pleases. That which dis- 
tracts and discourages the young student is confound- 
ing the steps of progress with the results and displays 
of perfection. He confounds the elements of an art 
with the refinement of its mastery. Let him observe 
the gradations between incipient efforts and remote 
excellence, and the perplexity is cleared up, the diffi- 
culty surmounted, the discouragement dissipated. 

When Dr. Black had a class of young men at the 
Reform Association, he disciplined them in rhetoric 
by causing each to marshal his discourse on a chosen 
theme under certain heads. These heads once gone 
over, he required them to be spoken upon by inver- 
sion, beginning probably with the peroration, con- 
tinuing with the argument, taking afterward the 
statement or other division belonging to the theme, 
and ending with the exordium. Not until a member 
could speak equally well on any one head, and in any 
order, was he deemed master of his subject. 

Professor de Morgan, who is considered the greatest 
of our mathematical teachers, remarks, in a paper 
which he furnished to Dr. Lardner's Geometry, that 
to number the parts of propositions is the only way 
of understanding them. Indeed, all great teachers 
admit that to identify details and grasp the whole are 
the two indices of proficiency. 

Margaret Fuller relates how backwoodsmen of 
America, whom she visited, would sit by their log 
fire at night and tell " rough pieces out of their lives." 
This disintegration of events by men strong of will 
and full of matter, in order to set distinct parts 



MASTERY. 123 

before auditors, is a sign of that power which we call 
mastery. The ability of the backwoodsman would 
be natural ability ; but all ability is the same in 
nature, though different in refinement. Ability is 
always power under command. 

A barrister will occasionally state a complex case 
to the jury before him, beginning with the simplest 
circumstance, continuing with the more difficult, 
arranging the facts in such order that the series 
throws light on the most obscure, that the whole 
case may be fully understood. When he feels this 
to be accomplished he returns, recapitulates, extracts 
those points that are to have most weight and puts 
them before the attention in the most prominent and 
forcible manner, and if his brief will afford it, like 
Fitzroy Kelly, he sheds tears to make his rhetoric 
pathetic. Without this power of statement, analyza- 
tion, and enforcement of special facts at will, a man 
is not master of his subject; his subject is rather 
master of him. 

In learning grammar, the parts of speech have 
first to be distinguished : nouns, verbs, descriptives. 
When these can be identified instantly, and in any 
order ; when their signs are evident on cursory 
inspection, parsing is surmounted. When the inflec- 
tions of these words are as readily perceived, another 
stage of progress is insured. When the subject, 
attribute, and object of a sentence are readily known, 
a third point is attained. There is a natural order 
of speech — the order of the understandings the order 
in which the subject is placed first, the affirmation 
second, the object last. When these positions can 
be transposed with ease, and the sense preserved, an 
additional portion of power is attained. When com- 



124 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

pound sentences can be broken up into short ones, 
and distinct fragments of meaning expressed one by 
one, the power of perspicuity is acquired. When 
the different circumstances in any narrative can be 
taken in at a glance, and the speaker or writer can 
fix upon those which are most likely to arrest atten- 
tion and arrange them so as to produce this effect 
without losing the thread or coherence of truth, the 
power of impressiveness is reached. After this 
comes the ability to put short clauses first, longer 
ones- next, and the lengthiest last, so as to fill the ear 
without marring the meaning or weakening the force. 
When this can be done the power of elegance is pos- 
sessed. When propositions can be stated with per- 
spicuity, supported by cogent facts, and arranged 
with transparent method; when the enunciation is 
distinct, manly, and sonorous, when similitude or 
imagery can be introduced, illuminating the subject 
by the light of wit, sinking it by ridicule or elevating 
it by symbol, thrilling by pathos, or irresistibly im- 
pressing by rapid condensation ; when a speaker can 
employ these weapons at pleasure, holding them at 
command with the grasp of a lion, and disposing 
them with the absolute will of a king, he has reached 
the summit of the rhetorical art; and if animated 
with a sublime purpose may influence, like Demos- 
thenes or Mirabeau, the destinies of men. 

Besides these there are other signs of mastery. 
Whewell thinks that we are never master of anything 
till we do it both well and unconsciously. But there 
is no test of proficiency so instructive as that put by 
George Sand into the mouth of Porpora, in her novel 
of Consuelo. When Consuelo, on the occasion of a 
trial performance, manifests some apprehension as to 



MASTERY. 125 

the result, Porpora sternly reminds her, that if there 
is room in her mind for misgiving as to the judgment 
of others, it is proof that she is not filled with the 
true love of art, which would so absorb her whole 
thoughts as to leave her insensible to the opinions of 
others ; and that if she distrusted her own powers it 
was plain they were not yet her powers, else they 
could not play her false. Porpora suggested the 
most instructive sign of mastery. The true love of 
art, like the perfect sense of duty, casteth out fear. 
And when study and discipline have done their 
proper work, failure is impossible ; we do not tremble 
at the result of the trial of our powers ; we are rather 
anxious for the opportunity and quite confident as to 
the result. 



PAET III. 
APPLIED POWERS 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CEITICISM. 



Assuming that the various principles discussed in 
this treatise are practical and relevant, the applica- 
tion of them to the judgment, to literary and oratori- 
cal efforts, will be jCriticism. For instance, after 
what has been said under the head of Effectiveness, 
the assenting reader will be prepared to pronounce 
that no work, consisting of many pages, should have 
detached and distinguishable beauties in every one 
of them. ISTo great work indeed should have many 
beauties ; if it were perfect, it would have but one, 
and that but faintly perceptible, except on a view of 
the whole. After what has been said in reference to 
the individuality resulting from Method, the reader 
of the works of the facetious American satirist, Pauld- 
ing, will be able to decide to what extent he has the 
fault, in common with some others, of labeling his 
characters, gay, sedate, or cynical, as the case may 
be, with descriptive names, as if doubtful of their 
possessing sufficient individuality to be otherwise dis- 
tinguished. If a hero cannot make himself known in 
his action and conversation, he is not worth bringing 



128 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

upon the boards. The student who coincides with 
what has been explained relative to Brevity, will, on 
reading such a passage as this, " Nicias asked merely 
for quarter for the miserable remains of his troops 
who had not perished in the Asinarius, or upon its 
banks,"* be at no loss in discovering the superfluous 
information given, that Mcias asked for quarter for 
those who " had not perished." • ISTo general asks for 
quarter for those who have. The same writer tells 
us that " discipline yielded to the pressure of neces- 
sity. They hurried down the steep in confusion and 
without order, and trod one another to death in the 
stream." Necessity is all " pressure," and it is not 
necessary to specify the essence of a thing as opera- 
tive. It is needless to tell us that men all " in confu- 
sion " " were without order." 

When we discover a number of emphatic words 
employed, we know the writer or speaker has no 
consciousness of measure. He either has no strength 
or he does not know where it lies. " When Kigby," 
says D'Israeli, " was of opinion he had made a point, 
you may be sure the hit was in italics, that last re- 
source of the forcible feebles." 

To tell your feelings on reading a book is one way 
of criticising its beauties. This rule was suggested to 
Gibbon on reading Longinus. The appeal to nature 
is here, as elsewhere, the purest guide. 

One can only conceive of Hamlet by tracing out 
men. Brutus has first to be found in society. He 
who has never seen the majesty of a noble nature will 
hardly conceive it well. How can we test the ora- 
tor's skill, or player's art, but by rules founded by 
ourselves on observation ? 

* Mayor's History of Greece, chap. xi. 



CEITICISM. 129 

" It belongs," says Schlegel, " to the general phil- 
osophical theory of poetry and the other fine arts, to 
establish the fundamental laws of the beautiful. 
Ordinarily, men entertain a very erroneous notion of 
Criticism, and understand by it nothing more than a 
certain shrewdness in detecting and exposing the 
faults of a work of art." In the search for the beauti- 
ful, he continues, " everything must be traced up to 
the root of human nature. Art cannot exist without 
nature, and man can give nothing to his fellow men 
but himself. The groundwork of human nature is 
everywhere the same ; but in our investigations we 
may observe, that throughout the whole range of 
nature there is no elementary power so simple, but 
that it is capable of dividing and diverging into op- 
posite directions. The whole play of vital motion 
hinges on harmony and contrast."'"* 

It would be treason to truth, an affectation of phi- 
lanthropy, systematically to conceal primary errors, 
or gloss over influential faults. It will ever be the 
province of Criticism to notice such in the spirit of 
improvement. But at length the principle has been 
established in literature, that perfection is better ad- 
vanced by the applause of excellence than by the 
eternal descantation on defects. Human nature has 
been analyzed, and it is found that more is to be 
gained by appealing to the sentiment of the beautiful 
than by exciting the horror of deformity. This is 
now Criticism's admitted canon ; demonstrated be- 
yond the power of prejudice to distort, or of willful- 
ness to neglect. This principle is not, or should not 
be, understood as warranting the reviewer in conniv- 
ing at error, but only as making his chief province 

* Dramatic Art and Literature, chap. i. 
9 



130 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

to be the genial recognition of artistic truth. Criti- 
cism still keeps watch and ward in the towers of Truth, 
that no enemy from the camps of Error shall steal 
into its dominions ; but it is ever anxious to welcome 
and to admit all followers of Progression, even 
though they may not exactly possess society's ac- 
credited passport. 



CHAPTEK XX. 

DEBATE. 

Debate is a great advantage, and when you win a 
sincere and able man to discuss with you, enter upon 
the exercise with gratitude. Your opponent may be 
the enemy of your opinions, but he is the friend of 
your improvement. The more ably he confronts yon, 
the more he serves you, if you have but the wisdom 
to profit by it. The gods, it is said, have not given to 
mortals the privilege of seeing themselves as others 
see them, but by a happy compensation in human af- 
fairs it is given to candid friends to supply what fate 
denies: and though candor does not imply infallibil- 
ity, it always includes instruction ; it affords that in- 
dispensable light of contrast which enables you to 
discover the truth if hidden from you, or to display 
the truth if you possess it. 

A good writer, says Godwin, must have that ductil- 
ity of thought that shall enable him to put himself in 
the place of his reader, and not suffer him to take it 
for granted, because he understands himself, that 
every one who comes to him for information will un- 



DEBATE. 131 

derstand him. He must view his phrases on all sides, 
and be aware of all the senses of which they are sus- 
ceptible. But this facility can nowhere be so certainly 
acquired as in debate, which is evidently a discipline 
as serviceable to the writer as to the speaker. 

All investigation should commence without prepos- 
session and end without dogmatism. Each disputant 
should be more anxious to explain than to defend his 
opinion. 

As an established truth is that which is generally 
received after it has been generally examined in a 
fair field of inquiry, it is evident that though truth may 
be discovered by research, it can only be established 
by debate. It is a mistake to suppose that it can be 
taught absolutely by itself. We learn truth by con- 
trast. It is only when opposed to error that we wit- 
ness truth's capabilities, and feel its full power. 

Oral investigation claims especial attention, because 
to a great extent it insures that its results shall be 
carried into practice. The pen develops principles, 
but it is the Jongue that chiefly stimulates to action. 

Discussion after public addresses would be of great 
public value. The discipline, to both speaker and 
hearers, would be greatly salutary. The argument 
against it, that it would lead to strife and discord, is 
the very reason why it should be practiced. Men are 
very childish intellectually while in that state in 
which debate must be prohibited. If they be chil- 
dren, train them in the art of debate until they are 
translated into men. 

To admit debate after an address, it is said, enables 
factious individuals to destroy the effect of what has 
been said. When unanimity of opinion comes, dis- 
cussion will* fall into disuse ; but till it does come, 



132 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

(and debate alone can bring it) discussion must be 
borne. It is the fault of the lecturer if any one is 
able to destroy the effect of his lecture. 

As a general rule, discussions, set and accidental, 
are good. A twofold reality by their means is brought 
to bear on the public understanding, more exciting 
than that of any other intellectual agency. An 
opinion that is worth holding is worth diffusing, and 
to be diffused it must be thought about; and when 
men think on true principles they become adherents ; 
but only those adherents are worth having who have 
thought on both sides, and discussion alone makes 
them do that well. True, men may read on both 
sides, but it seldom happens that men who are im- 
pressed by one side care to read the other. In dis- 
cussions they are obliged to hear both sides. If men 
do read both sides, unless they read a " Discussion," 
they do not find all the facts on one side specially 
considered on the other. In a discussion read, 
unless read at one sitting, the strength of an 
impression and the clearness of the argument on one 
side is partly lost before the opponent's side is perused. 
But in an oral debate, the adaptation of fact to fact is 
complete as far as it perhaps can be; the pro and con 
are heard successively, the light of contrast is full and 
clear, and both sides are weighed at the same time 
when the eye is sharply fixed on the balance. It 
matters not whether the disputants argue for victory 
or truth. If they are intellectual gladiators so much 
the better. The stronger they are the mightier the 
battle and the more instructive the conflict. It is 
said that people come out of such discussions as they 
go into them; that the same partisans shout or hiss on 
the same side all through. This is not always true, 



DEBATE. 13S 

and no matter if it is. The work of conviction is 
often done, though the audience may not show it. 
They may break ye ur head, and afterward own you 
were right. Human pride forbids the confession, but 
change is effected in spite of pride. But if an audience 
remain the same at night, they will not be the same 
the next morning. I rather like to contemplate that 
conviction which is legun in discussion, not ended there. 
He who hastily changes is to be suspected of weakness 
or carelessness. Tie steady and deliberate thinker 
who takes time to consider is the safest convert. 

If you invite oppvjsition do it with circumspection. 
Never debate for the sake of debating. It lowers the 
character of debate. The value of free speech is too 
great to be trifled with. Seek conflict only with 
sincere men. Concede to your opponent the first 
word and the last. Let him appoint the chair- 
man. Let him speak double time if he desires 
it. Debate is objected to as an exhibition in 
which disputants try to surprise, outwit, take advant- 
age of, and discomfit each other. To obviate this 
objection explain to your opponent the outline of the 
course you intend to pursue, acquaint him with the 
books you shall quote, the authorities you shall cite, 
the propositions you shall endeavor to prove, and the 
concessions you shall demand. And do this without 
expecting the same 1 1 his hands. He will not now be 
taken by surprise. He will be prewarned and pre- 
armed. He will huve time to prepare, and if the 
truth is in him it ought to come out. 

If you feel that you cannot give all these advant- 
ages to your opponent, suspect yourself and suspect 
your side of the question. Every conscientious and 
decided man believes his views to he true, and if con : 



134 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

sistent, lie believes them to be impregnable. Neither 
in minutes, months, or years are they to be refuted. 
Then a man so persuaded may despise petty advant- 
ages, and enable his opponent to arm himself before- 
hand. 

In another particular discussions were esteemed 
unsatisfactory. When statement and reply have been 
made, then came the reply to the reply, and then the 
reply to that, till the cavil seemed endless, perplex- 
ing, and tiresome. 

Now the object of discussion is not the vexatious 
chase of an opponent, but the contrastive and current 
statement of opinion. Therefore endeavor to select 
leading opinions, to state them strongly and clearly ; 
and when your opponent replies, be content to leave 
his arguments side by side with your own for the 
judgment of the auditors. In no case disparage an 
opponent, misstate his views, or torture his words, 
and thus, for the sake of a verbal triumph, produce 
lasting ill-feelings. Your sole business is with what 
he says, not how he says it, nor why he says it. Your 
aim should be that the audience should lose sight of 
the speakers and be possessed with the subject, and 
that those who come the partisans of persons shall 
depart the partisans of principles. The victory in a 
debate lies not in lowering an opponent, but in rais- 
ing the subject in public estimation. Controversial 
wisdom lies not in destroying an opponent, but in 
destroying his error; not in making him ridiculous 
so much as in making the audience wise. 

Debate requires self-possession, a power to think on 
your legs. But even in debate, the victory is oftener 
with the foregone than with the impromptu thinker. 
A man who knows his subject well will be forearmed. 



DEBATE. 135 

He alone can distinctly see the points in dispute, and 
the nature of the proof or disproof necessary to set- 
tle the question. 

At the threshold of controversy it is well to define 
all leading terms, which should never be used in any 
other than the settled sense. A common standard of 
appeal should be agreed upon. The question at issue 
should be stated so .clearly that it cannot possibly be 
misunderstood. RTo opponent should be accepted 
whose sincerity you cannot assume, as it must never 
be questioned in debate. Find no fault with his 
grammar, manner, intentions, tone, whatever may be 
the provocation. Attend only to the matter. Hear 
all things without impatience and without emotion. 
Let your opponent fully exhaust his matter. En- 
courage him to say whatever he thinks relevant. 
Many persons believe in the magnitude of their posi- 
tions because they have never been permitted to state 
them to others : and when they have once delivered 
themselves of their opinions, they often find for the 
first time how insignificant they are. There are some 
persons whom nobody can confute but themselves. 
When you distinguish such your proper business is to 
let them do it. Learn to satisfy yourself and to pre- 
sent a conclusive statement of your opinions, and 
when you have done so, have the courage to abide by 
it. If you cannot trust your statement to be canvassed 
by others ; if you feel anxious to add some additional 
remark at every step ; if reply from your opponent 
begets reply from you, suspect your knowledge of 
your own case and withdraw it for further reflection. 
Master as completely as you can your opponent's the- 
ories, and state his case with the greatest fairness, and 
if possible state it with more force against yourself 



136 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

than your opponent can. The observance of this rule 
will teach you two frhings, your opponent's strength 
or weakness, and your own also. If you cannot state 
your opponent's case you do not know it, and if you 
do not know it you are not in a lit state to argue 
against it. If you dare not state your opponent's case 
in its greatest force you feel it to be stronger than 
your own, and in that case you ought not to argue 
against it. 

The course here suggested will be as useful to truth 
as to the disputant. Great prejudice may often be 
disarmed by thus daring it. In this manner Gibbon 
delivered his argument in favor of an hereditary mon- 
archy. " Of the various forms of government which 
have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy 
seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Is it 
possible to relate, without an indignant smile, that 
on the father's decease, the property of a nation, like 
that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as 
yet unknown to mankind and to himself, and that the 
bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquish- 
ing their natural right to empire, approach the royal 
cradle with bended knees and protestations of invio- 
lable fidelity! Satire and declamation may paint 
these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, 
but our serious thoughts will respect a useful 
prejudice that establishes a rule of succession inde- 
pendent of the passions of mankind '; and we shall 
cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives 
the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal 
power of giving themselves a master." We often 
hold an opinion from the belief that those who dis- 
sent from it do not know its full bearings as we do 
or they would be of our opinion too ; but when, as 



DEBATE. 137 

in the case of Gibbon, we are instructed that our op- 
ponent perfectly understands our case, and states its 
strongest points, we feel that justice has been done 
to us, and we are the more disposed to acquiesce in 
an adverse judgment come to after we have been 
fully heard. 

What Dr. Paley has delineated with respect to a 
written controversy, is not inapplicable to an. oral de- 
bate. The fair way of conducting a dispute is to ex- 
hibit one by one the arguments of your opponent, 
and with each argument the precise and specific an- 
swer you are able to give it. If this method be not 
so common, nor found so convenient as might be 
expected, the reason is because it suits not always 
with the designs of a writer, which are no more per- 
haps than to make a hook y to confound some argu- 
ments, and to keep others out of sight ; to leave what 
is called an impression upon the reader, without any 
care to inform him of the proofs or principles by 
which his opinion should be governed. With such 
views it may be consistent to dispatch objections, by 
observing of some " that they are old," and, there- 
fore, like certain drugs, have lost, we may suppose, 
their strength ; of others, that u they have long since 
received an answer;" which implies, to be sure, a 
confutation ; to attack straggling remarks, and de- 
cline the main reasoning as " mere declamation ;" to 
pass by one passage because it is " long-winded," 
another because the answerer " has neither leisure nor 
inclination to enter into the discussion of it;" to pro- 
duce extracts and quotations which, taken alone, im- 
perfectly, if at all, express their author's meaning ; 
to dismiss a stubborn difficulty with a " reference," 
which, ten to one, the reader never looks at ; and, 



138 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

lastly, in order to give the whole a certain fashionable 
air of candor and moderation, to make a concession 
or two which nobody thanks him for, or yield up 
a few points which it is no longer any credit to 
maintain. 

It will be evident that this minuteness of reply 
could not be undertaken without reference to the im- 
portance of the question at issue and the abilities of 
the opponent. Such elaborate pains belong only to 
great occasions. 

It is not necessary always to demonstrate the 
validity of a given position. To show the impotence 
of the opposite is often quite sufficient. 

It is recorded in the historical memoirs of Curran, 
that his general practice as a lawyer, when engaged 
for the defense, was rather to rely on the weakness 
to which he could reduce the case of his opponents 
than on the strength of his own, except on very pe- 
cular occasions. 

Be very careful of generalization ; utter no whole- 
sale censure. It will nearly always be wrong. Class- 
ify the partisans of opinions. which you confute. You 
will reduce your opponents, and gain in justice and 
force ; for when you confound objectors together, 
you outrage all and convince few. If you can dis- 
tinguish classes, address but one class at a time. 

Upon the general rules proper for conducting a 
debate it is hardly possible to enter. Even public 
meetings in this country are conducted on the crudest 
principles. If men were commonly intelligent, and 
many were disposed to take part in public meetings, 
it would be impossible that any business could be 
transacted under several days. The assumption that 
every man has a right to be heard, could not be acted 



LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 139 

upon if half who usually attend public meetings were 
to enforce that " right." 

When a speech or lecture is debated, each dispu- 
tant expects to occupy the same time as the speaker, 
which often prevents more than one being heard in 
reply. But a short time for several might be fixed, 
and thus combine discipline with disputation. Brev- 
ity of time would induce directness and brevity of 
speech; it is not the work of any one speaker, but 
the work of many to attack the whole lecture, and 
each should select a leading point, and ten minutes 
would afford time for a very effective objection if 
one could be raised. 

At public meetings, where many opposing parties 
often struggle to be heard, confusion, delay, and ill- 
feeling might be obviated by each party preappoint- 
ing a representative of ability, in whom confidence 
could be reposed, to speak on their behalf, and by 
those calling the meeting being made acquainted 
with, and consenting to the arrangement, the views 
of half a dozen parties could be advocated, where the 
views of one are heard but inadequately and im- 
patiently now. 



CHAPTER XXL 

LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 

The first problem that has to be solved by the 
people is one of fraternization. If we wait till unity 
of opinion on all points is created before we co- 
operate together, reforms will be delayed for ages. 



140 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

The only mode whereby public success can be 
achieved in our day is by the union on general points 
of men differing on infinite particulars. But person- 
alities constitute a serious danger. The only way to 
disarm them is to brave them. To court personali- 
ties is fatal to union ; to shun them, fatal to reputa- 
tion. The friends of a cause ought to be able to dare 
all opinions, and all opinions might be dared by 
those in the right. There can be no quarrel unless 
two parties engage in it, and it is always in the 
power of one party to prevent it by refusing to be a 
party to it. ISTo man can quarrel with another with- 
out that other's consent. Hence the veto of peace 
and amity is always in the hands of one of the dispu- 
tants. It is often a duty to notice individual error. 
It is often indispensable. But the execution of such 
a duty would not be so distasteful to the public as it 
now is, were it not for the unskillful manner in which 
it is generally done. If, when objections to a public 
man must be made, they were well selected and 
singly urged, without ill-will, and when once pre- 
sented left as a public warning, the practice would 
be felt to be useful and tolerable. Instead of this 
course a miscellaneous fire is extended to every im- 
aginable peccadillo, and conjectures called in when 
facts are exhausted, until what was, or should be, 
intended as a public lesson becomes a gratification 
of private resentment. When retaliation usurps tho 
desire to improve another the contest sinks into per- 
sonalities. 

I have often sent pupils out together in pairs to 
talk with all deliberation and caution, and to note 
how many expletives they employ, how many errors 
they commit, how insequential are their thoughts, 



LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 141 

and how inexact their language. Indeed, how few 
men have disciplined themselves in these respects ! 
How few read j, florid writers or speakers are pre- 
cise! How few men have the power of being coher- 
ent ! How much is said which is never meant, even 
"by those who are most careful ! How few ever 
acquire the habit of thinking before they speak ! 
Passing from common life, let the experience of the 
bar and the closet be heard. Does not the shrewd 
lawyer, whose whole life is one long, laborious study 
of accuracy, perpetually find the Act of Parliament 
upon which many have labored open to three or four 
interpretations? And does not the philosopher daily 
regret the vagueness of human language? Then 
on what principle of good sense can we, without most 
patient deliberation, hurl at each other obnoxious 
epithets? 

What eloquence is more touching than that of a 
simple tale of actual wrong! The very absence of 
passion gives it force. The dispassionateness of its 
relation infuses the air of truth. The presence of 
passion leads us to suspect the partisan, and invec- 
tive is felt to be the twin brother of exaggeration. 
Strength is always calm in battle. Truth imparts 
repose ; the suffrage of mankind is always on the 
side of dignity. Disputants instinctively bear out 
the truth of all this. When a man feels that he has 
a strong case, we have therefore no excitement, no 
self-returned verdict. A man who thinks he has a 
clear case always feels he may safely leave it to the 
judgment of others. No barrister makes a long 
speech to the jury when the evidence is all on his 
side. Pitzroy Kelly never sheds tears except when 
he has a Tawell to defend. 



142 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

All which should be done for the adjustment of a 
difference is, that a man should quietly understate 
his case, that he should make no material assertion 
unaccompanied by the proof, that he should make 
the fairest allowance for his rival's excitement, put 
the best possible construction on his words and acts, 
and leave the matter there. All whose suffrages are 
worth having will make the proper award on his 
side without further trouble on his part. The reason 
of so many departures from this rule is the want of 
courage or the want of sense. It is a common opin- 
ion, that if a man does not bluster and retort, he is 
deficient in spirit. It is this apprehension which 
betrays weak men into violence, and to prove them- 
selves independent they become rude and insolent, 
and mistake the part of the bravo for that of the hero. 
But a man of disciplined intelligence knows that 
courage always pursues its own resolute way without 
noise or ostentation, firmly preserves its independ- 
ence, stands immovable in frankness and kindness 
corrects misrepresentation, repairs any injury it may 
have done, silences slander with the truth, and goes 
on its way. No wise man answers a fool according 
to his folly. He shows that it is folly, and abandons 
it to die by its own hands. 

A few years ago a couple of Dutchmen, Yon 
Yampt and Yan Bones, lived on friendly terms on 
the high hills of Limestone. At last they fell out 
over a dog. Yon Yampt killed Yan Bones's canine 
companion. Bones, choosing to assume the killing 
to have been intentional, sued Yampt for damages. 
They were called in due time into court, when the 
defendant in the case was asked by the judge whether 
lie killed the dog. " Pe sure I kilt him," said Yampt, 



LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 143 

"but let Bones prove it." This being quite satisfac- 
tory, the plaintiff in the action was called on to 
answer a few questions, and among others he was 
asked by the judge at what amount he estimated the 
damages. He did not well understand the question, 
and so, to be a little plainer, the judge inquired 
what he thought the <3og to be worth-? " Pe sure," 
replied Bones, "the dog was worth nothing; but 
since he was so mean as to kill him, he shall pay de 
full value of him." How many suits have occupied 
the attention of courts, how " many contests have 
engaged the time of the public, and have been 
waged with virulence and invective, having no more 
worthy difference than that of Yon Vampt and Yan 
Bones !" 

At every step, however, we are admonished how 
conscientiously a man can be in the wrong. Many 
enter the quagmire of recrimination as a matter of 
duty rather than taste. The question is commonly 
put, " Ought we not to state all we know to be true?" 
I answer, no ; unless it can be shown to be useful. 
Every man knows a thousand things which are true, 
but which it would profit nobody to hear. When 
we essay to speak the rule is imperative that we 
speak the truth, absolutely and truly the truth, if one 
may write so paradoxically; but of what truth we 
will communicate, good sense must be the judge, 
utility the measure. If all truth must be published 
without regard to propriety, William Eufus, who 
drew a tooth per day from a rich Jew's head to 
induce him to tell where his treasures were con- 
cealed, was a great moral philosopher. " Well, but 
what a man believes to be true and useful may he 
not state?" will be inquired of me. I answer, no; 



144 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

unless he can prove it. If every man stated his sus- 
picions, no character would be safe from aspersion ; 
society would be a universal school for scandal. 
Suspicion is the food of slander. What public man 
is at this hour safe from it? There is already more 
actual evil in existence than the virtuous are likely 
soon to correct ; and little necessity exists for suspi- 
cion to supply hypothetical cases. "But to bring 
the question to the point," observes the reader, " if 
two disputants have respectively l proved' the fitness 
of the epithets they have mutually applied, are they 
not justified in having used them?" I answer, avoid 
it as often as possible. It is the complainant usurp- 
ing the province of the jury and the judge. It is 
the vice of controversy that each disputant will 
unite the offices of witness, jury, and judge, give his 
own evidence, return, his own verdict, and pronounce 
the sentence in his own favor. A function which no 
man would tolerate in a court of justice every con- 
troversialist exercises with an inflexible will. It is 
this which has been the real " disgrace" of religious, 
political, and literary discussions. That precaution 
which the wisdom of the lawyer has taken against 
human frailty is not lightly to be set aside. Law- 
yers are the philosophers of disputes, and have wisely 
taken out of the hands of interest, petulance, and 
passion the power of deciding upon their own case. 
Yet disputants will do that unhesitatingly, with re- 
gard to each other, which in a court of justice would 
long engage the anxious and earnest attention of 
twelve disinterested, dispassionate, and patient men. 
The first principle which should actuate all human 
intercourse, public or private, is that of aiming at the 
improvement of each other. This neither passion 



LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 145 

nor interest should obscure. Yet how often do men 
come into the field, not as true friends who have 
differences to adjust, but as adversaries bent on each 
other's destruction ? Those who would decry a duel 
in the usual way, will yet fight a duel on paper. We 
have nothing to do with our neighbor as his evil 
genius ; we ought, like Kudolph, to be the providence 
of our friends. ' The people boast how far they are in 
advance of the government, but in respect of etiquette 
they are far behind. Even despotic states admit, in 
theory, that the punishment of criminals is in itself 
indefensible malignity; that only so far as the brute 
ignorance of others renders it necessary as an exam- 
ple, ought it ever to be attempted. The improve- 
ment and not the mortification in person or character 
is that at which jurisprudence and well understood 
justice now aim. Disagreement is a contingency of 
human nature, from which it will never be freed until 
men are cast in one monotonous mould. Differences 
are in themselves as natural and as innocent as varia- 
tion in form, color, or strength. It is the manner in 
which those who differ seek to adjust their differences 
that constitutes any disgrace there may be in any 
case. Unless we have boasted of philosophy in vain, 
we ought never to take up arms against an enemy 
without at the same time keeping his welfare in View, 
as well as our own defense. Before the genius of 
this aphorism the prosaic commonplaces of life dis- 
solve ; man rises to nobility. To consult the welfare 
of friends is kind, obliging, amiable ; but the publi- 
cans do even the same. To promote the welfare of 
enemies, to do good to those who hate us, is generous. 
Higher than Brutus, we walk the platform with 
Coriolanus. Our true business is not with good and 

10 



146 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

bad men, but with fair or unfair, right or wrong 
conduct. We ought never to disparage, never to 
impute evil intentions, and in the strongest cases 
leave the way open for explanation and reconcilia- 
tion. We may be firm, and yet fraternal ; manly, 
and yet kind ! 

Locke called his opponents "irrational," Addison 
"miscreants," Dr. Clarke "crazy," Paley "insane," 
and Sir Walter Scott makes Sir Everard Waverly 
class " rakes, gamblers, and whigs " together. These 
are the mere expletives of polemical and political 
partisanship, the commonplace effervescences of pas- 
sion, old as ignorance, universal as vulgarity. They 
have no novelty, no originality. The elegant con- 
trast of controversy lies in contrast of argument ; this 
is ever fresh and instructive. All recrimination 
being common to both disputants will in time, like 
the common quantities in an algebraic equation, be- 
struck out of disputes as only making more difficult 
the finding of the true result. If any epithets are 
retained in use they will be confined to error rather 
than showered on the erring, and the limit of their 
application will exclude personal disparagement. 

Our reformers disagree not about reforms, but 
modes of advocacy. I tnink it can be shown that 
our government seldom if ever pass laws against 
purpose, but against extravagance of language, in 
which passion, or hate, or unskillfulness express that 
purpose. Passion and hate may be founded in sin- 
cerity, but not in wisdom ; and were men rhetorically 
wiser they might aim at more and accomplish more 
than they now can. 

It admits of demonstration that the progress of 
reform is mainly hindered among us by a few meta- 



LAWS OF PEKSONALITIES. 147 

physical mistakes. The diatribes respectively hurled 
by rich and poor against each other arise in an error 
of generalization. Both mean the truth, but they 
express more than the truth, and out of this error 
come division and ill-will. 

Generalizations in science have to be stated cir- 
cumspectly and with qualification. A generalization 
finds a resemblance in perhaps one point only, and 
that resemblance probably in only the majority of a 
class. If you accuse in exact language a class of 
stones possessing a certain property which is not pos- 
sessed by all, the exceptional stones will not be scan- 
dalized as the same number of men would whom you 
happened to include in a carelessly-worded, disparag- 
ing general assertion. It is of no use that you say to 
the person whom you have wrongly accused : "0 1 
did not mean you ; I meant to allow that there were 
exceptions." Men naturally suspect that he who is 
incapable of speaking with accuracy is incapable of 
thinking with accuracy, and if they acquit you of 
incapacity they convict you of carelessness. 

Facts make up accusative propriety ; and if the 
facts are not absolutely universal — and with grades of 
human character they never are — the application of 
accusation must always be special. 

It is a wise maxim in jurisprudence, that ten guilty 
men had better escape than that one innocent man 
should suffer. So with rhetorical and public judg- 
ments. The one innocent man condemned will do 
both judge and justice more harm than the ten guilty 
who escape. 

Men live on good opinion to a great extent. 
"When therefore you take away a man's good name 
you take away that which is in many cases the basis 



148 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

of self-respect. In the advocacy of a good cause, 
then, let us beware how we proceed with personali- 
ties, lest we undo in one direction what we seek to 
do in another. 

A. de Morgan, in his reply to Sir W. Hamilton, in 
their recent discussion on the origination of Formal 
Logic, makes these useful remarks: "In the day of 
swords it was one of the objects of public policy to 
prevent people from sticking them into each other's 
bodies on trivial grounds. We now wear pens ; and 
it is as great a point to hinder ourselves from sticking 
them into each other's characters without serious and 
well-considered reasons. To this end I have always 
considered it as one of the first and most special rules 
that conviction of the truth of a charge is no sufficient' 
reason for its promulgation. I assert that no one is 
justified in accusing another until he has his proof 
ready ; and that in the interval, if indeed it be right 
that there should be any interval between the charge 
and the attempt at substantiation, all the leisure 
and energies of the accuser are the property of the 
accused." 

Thomas Cooper, D.D., Bishop of Winchester, in 
1589 issued a pamphlet with this title: "An Admo- 
nition to the People of England : wherein are answer- 
ed not onely the slaunderous vntruethes, reproachfully 
vttered by Martin the Libeller, but also many other 
Crimes by some of his broode, objected generally 
against all Bishops, and the chiefe of the Cleargie, 
purposely to deface and discredite the present state 
of the Church." 

Even the Bishop of Exeter would not now, in 1849, 
think of inditing such a title-page against his most 
decided opponents. It is not that truth and false- 



LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 149 

hood or right and wrong have changed, but that 
good taste and private justice are in the ascendant. 
"We no longer (in good society) attack the motives, 
> but the principles of men. 

Let us apply the rule we have been illustrating to 
Parliamentary controversies. If every member were 
to say what is true or what he believes to be true of 
another, our legislative assemblies would soon come 
to resemble those of the United States, in one of 
which, not long ago, a member in audience being 
tired in listening to the member in possession of the 
house, got up and said : " Mr. Speaker, I should like 
to know how long that 'ar blackguard is to go on tir- 
ing me to death in this manner?'' The Irish House of 
Commons, before the Union, furnishes a specimen of 
what must happen if sentiments are to be expressed 
without rule : " I will not call him villain, because 
he is chancelor of the exchequer ; I will not call him 
liar, because he is a privy counselor ; but I will say 
of him that he is one who has taken advantage of the 
privilege of this house to utter language to which, in 
any other place, my answer would have been a 
blow." Such were the expressions used by Mr. 
Grattan toward Air. Corrie, and a duel was the imme- 
diate result. We endeavor to keep clear of this 
blackguardism ; not because it is unimportant whether 
a man lies or not, but because we have learned the 
good sense of not impugning integrity upon suspi- 
cion ; and when we can impugn it on fact we need no 
harsh words ; the fact is the severest judgment. 

De Morgan, whom I have just quoted, relates that 
the late Professor Yince was once arguing at Cam- 
bridge against dueling, and some one said, " Well, 
but professor, what could you do if any one called 



150 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

you a liar ?" " Sir," said the fine old fellow in his 
peculiar brogue, " I should tell him to pruv it ; and 
if he did pruv it, I should be ashamed of myself ; and 
if he didn't, he ought to be ashamed of himself." 

The obvious laws we should impress on all who 
controvert, seem to be these : 

1. To consult in all cases the improvement of those 
whom we oppose, and to this end argue not for our 
gratification, or pride, or vanity, but for their en- 
lightenment. 

2. To invert the vulgar mode of judgment, and 
not, when we guess at motives, guess the worst, but 
adopt the best construction the case admits. 

3. To distinguish between the personalities which 
impugn the j udgment, and those that criminate char- 
acter, and never to advance accusations of either kind 
without distinct and indisputable proof; never to assail 
character on suspicion, probability, belief, or likelihood. 

4. To keep distinct the two kinds of personalities, 
never mixing up those which pertain to character 
with those which pertain to judgment. 

5. To never meddle with either, unless some public 
good is to come out of it. It is not enough that a 
charge is true ; it must be useful to prefer it, before a 
wise publicist will meddle with it. 

6. To dare all personalities ourselves ; to brave all 
attacks ; to defy the judgment of mankind, and when 
we are assailed, unfailingly to respect ourselves, and 
keep in view the betterance of him whom we oppose, 
rather than our own personal gratification.* 

* For an enlarged consideration of this question see articles (Nos.. 
20 and 24 of the "People's Press") entitled the "Philosophy of 
Personalities," where I have treated of their introduction into public 
parties. 



LAWS OF PEESONALITIES. 151 

"Were the errors discussed in this chapter confined 
to the vulgar, we might confide in the spread of ordi- 
nary intelligence to dissipate them. But it is other- 
wise. Who would have expected to have found the 
" sweetest and most genuine poetess of the age," 
C. B., writing in the AthecBnum a letter of anger, re- 
proach, and condemnation of Mr. Howitt, for having 
written something which she confesses she had "never 
read." Literary etiquette seems to have received no 
improvement with time. Hazlitt, Byron, Southey, 
and other luminaries of literature, sink to the level of 
the meanest of mankind when they are found engaged 
in the adjustment of their differences. When turning 
over the periodicals of their times, one is amazed at 
the flood of vituperation, the envy, jealousy, and miser- 
able disparagement of each other. Yet if all this 
littleness exists, better that it be expressed, that one 
may see what our gods are made of. Rudeness is 
healthier than hypocrisy, and therefore the policy 
which conceals rankling malignity is more pernicious 
than the display of it. Let it be avowed until men 
are convinced that it is unreasonable. Leigh Hunt 
has the credit of having prophesied long ago that the 
old philosophic conviction would revive among us as 
a popular one, that recrimination, denouncements, 
and threats should be put an end to, and the percep- 
tion prevail that the errors of mankind arise rather 
from the want of knowledge than the defect of good- 
ness. But what is the history of modern parties ? 
Has not recriminative error broken up the best of 
them into miserable sections? "Stupidity" can be 
informed, " ignorance " can be enlightened ; but the 
" collision of interest and passion, and the perversities 
of self-will and self-opinion " destroy all before them. 



152 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

What hope is there of the improvement of the unedu- 
cated, while those who should know better perpetuate 
the infectious example ? Men whose names it is need- 
less to cite, and whom, prior to experience, I could 
not have believed to be unconscious of the fact, I 
have found unaware that simplicity in the expression 
of passion is the lesson of nature and of genius, and 
the greatest discovery of rhetorical experience. It 
is, however, clear that there is no hope for the efficient 
progress of the order of industry while their natural 
leaders and exemplars depart from that propriety 
which alone is strength. 

The necessity of enforcing this most practical part 
of rhetoric, (the rhetoric of dispute,) which is taught 
in no Mechanics' or Literary Institution, is evidenced 
in the discouraging fact that an impartial, impersonal, 
and dispassionate tone is almost fatal in newspaper 
and periodical literature. We address a populace to 
whom nothing that is just seems spirited. We must 
be offensively personal or we are pronounced tame. 
Unless we are rancorous we are not relished. The 
reason is that most men, when stung by a sense of 
injury, are naturally precipitated from extreme to 
extreme. Their opinions, when sincere, " are not 
produced by the ordinary law of intellectual births, 
by induction or inference, but are equivocally gen- 
erated" by the heat of fervid emotion, wrought upon 
by some sense of unbearable oppression. 

So it ever is with the intellectually undisciplined, 
of whatever class ; they believe all strength manifests 
itself in spasms, that truth is a descendant from the 
furies, that no man can be brave who does not bluster, 
nor have enthusiasm if he do not write in hysterics. 
But I quit this subject, repeating the fine language 



QUESTIONING. 153 

of one whom I have several times quoted : " Defect 
in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. 
... A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful 
form : it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pic- 
tures. It is the finest of the fine arts. . . . The 
person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, 
or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to 
flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. . . . 
Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine 
qualities. A gentleman makes no noise : a lady is 
serene. . . . Let us leave hurry to slaves. The com- 
'pliments and ceremonies of our breeding should sig- 
nify, however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

QUESTIONING. 

The Socratic method of disputation or artful question- 
ing, (of which Zeno, the Eleatic, was the author,) by 
which an opponent is entrapped into concessions, 
and thus confuted, is rather fit for wranglers and 
sophists than reasoners. There is too much reason to 
believed that Socrates condescended to this course 
often at the expense of ingenuousness. It is said in 
his defense that he did it not as the sophists, for the 
sake of confounding virtue, but for the purer purpose 
of confounding dexterous vice. It is, however, be- 
neath the dignity of a reasoner to betray his opponent 
into the truth. 

Questioning, however, is an essential instrument. 
A high authority, Dr. Arnold, has put this in a useful 



154 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

light : " An inquiring spirit is not a presumptuous 
one, but the very contrary. He whose whole re- 
corded life was intended to be our perfect example, 
is described as gaining instruction in the temple by 
hearing and asking questions ; the one is almost use- 
less without the other. We should ask questions of 
our books and of ourselves, what is its purpose, by 
what means it proceeds to effect that purpose, whether 
we fully understand the one, whether we go along 
with the other. Do .the arguments satisfy us ? do the 
descriptions convey lively and distinct images to us ? 
do we understand all the allusions to persons or* 
things ? In short, does our mind act over again from 
the writer's guidance what his acted before ? do We 
reason as he reasoned, conceive as he conceived, 
think and feel as he thought and felt % or if not, can 
we discern where and how far we do not, and can 
we tell why we do not ? 

Questioning has also a place in rhetoric as well 
as in research. Frankly conducted, it is a mode 
of conviction without offense. To whatever an oppo- 
nent urges, with which we do not agree, of course we 
have some objection. Put this objection incidentally, 
and ask it as a question, what answer can be given to 
it? This is a good conversational mode of debate, 
where the improvement of an opponent, rather than 
a triumph over him, is the object. It is not showy, 
but it is searching. 

In a similar way confidence may be acquired by 
diffident speakers. A novitiate conversationalist is 
shy of taking part in debating a topic lest he should 
not be able to sustain himself. To such I have said : 
Put your argument in the form of an objection which 
some would urge, and beg some one of the company 



EEPETITION. 155 

to tell you what he would say in reply. If to this 
answer you have an objection further, put that also 
in the querist form ; for a- man will be able to ask a 
question who would never be able to make a speech. 
By this easy means the most diffident may get into 
conversation; and when once excited will speak 
freely enough, perhaps too freely. A coward will 
fight when he grows warm in strife. 

This method has another advantage : by this means 
a novice learns the best answers which the company 
can give to his own argument, and thus, without risk 
of exposure, he learns their weakness or finds out 
their strength. He has also taken the guage of his 
opponents' powers, and can, if he sees, well, match 
himself against them. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

KEPETITIOJ5T. 

The reformer who comprehends his mission attempts 
the discipline of the people in nobler views. Only 
great natures are heroic by instinct. But it is not 
more true that all men are eloquent sometimes than 
that all men are noble sometimes ; but few continue 
so, for want of the influence of suitable circumstances 
to nourish and sustain the feeling. Every man is 
great when he lays down Pluturch, but the feeling 
dies away in the contact with the lower life of cities, 
To remedy this the reformer has recourse to reiter- 
ation. 



156 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

In introducing a new topic to an auditory a wise 
speaker repeats the same sentiment and argument in 
many different forms of expression, each in itself 
brief, but all together affording such an expansion of 
the sense to be conveyed, and detaining the mind 
upon it, as the case may require. Care must be 
taken that the repetition may not be too glaringly 
apparent ; the variations must not consist in the mere 
use of other synonymous words, but what has been 
expressed in appropriate terms may be repeated in 
metaphorical; the antecedent or consequent of any 
argument or the parts of an antithesis may be trans- 
posed, or several different points that have been 
enumerated presented in a varied order. 

It is given to reiteration to accomplish that which 
is denied to power. The reputation of Robespierre, 
now breaking a little through clouds of calumny 
denser and darker than ever before obscured human 
name, is a striking illustration of the omnipotence of 
repetition. The most eloquent of its vindicators has 
thus sketched his triumph : 

" Still deeper in the shade, and behind the chief of 
the National Assembly, a man almost unknown be- 
gan to move, agitated by uneasy thoughts, which 
seemed to forbid him to be silent and unmoved ; he 
spoke on all occasions, and attacked all speakers indif- 
ferently, including Mirabeau himself. Driven from 
the tribune, he ascended it next day ; overwhelmed 
with sarcasm, coughed down, disowned by all parties, 
lost among the eminent champions who fixed public 
attention, he was incessantly beaten, but never dispir- 
ited. It might have been said that an inward and 
prophetic genius revealed to him the vanity of all 
talent and the omnipotence of a firm will and un- 



POETRY. 157 

wearied patience, and that an inward voice said to 
him : ' These men who despise thee are thine ; all 
the changes of this revolution, which now will not 
deign to look upon thee, will eventually terminate in 
thee, for thou hast placed tlryself in the way like the 
inevitable excess, in which all impulse ends.' " 



CHAPTEK XXIY. 

POETRY. 

. Such proverbs as " poets are born and not made," 
have encouraged the notion that inspiration does 
everything for the poet and art nothing ; whereas 
inspiration gives him the idea, and art enables him 
to express it. It is very probable that " creative " 
capacity is an element in the poetic nature which art 
does not make, but educates only. Yet experience 
teaches us that decided poetic power sometimes sinks 
into the commonplace, and that that which has been 
pronounced mediocre has been cultured into excel- 
lence. We therefore ought to pause before treating 
so disdainfully, as is the fashion, the humble versifiers 
who from time to time solicit the world's notice. 
Certainly Byron's " Hours of Idleness " were as weak 
a specimen of the poetic as patrician or plebeian fancy 
ever concocted. It gave no sign of that fierce power 
which was afterward evoked from the same pen. 
Both Burns and Elliott have been greatly indebted, 
perhaps as much indebted, to art as to their ideas for 
the distinction w T hich attaches to their names. Many 



158 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

a name of note now might be cited whose infantile 
genius was rocked in the cradle of doggerel. 

Between rhyme and poetry there is a great gulf, 
which patient study alone may bridge over. Some 
of the intermediate steps may be indicated. The 
gradations may be explained, which, though all may 
not be able to pass through, all may be able to under- 
stand and determine their own position in reference 
to them. 

A Sunderland candidate for Parnassian laurels 
lately presented the public with the following very 
A-B-C effort : 

Two gentlemen dined at my house, 
For breakfast they had some ham ; 

Says I, "Are you going to Hartlepool?" 
"0 yes," says they, "we am." 

Even the rudest kind of verse should have some 
qualities not found in prose. What poetry is it is 
not easy to define 'satisfactorily. But this is agreed 
upon, that whatever is called poetry ought to contain 
an idea or ideas above the level of prose, and such as 
cannot be so well expressed in prose. Now ordinary 
prose, if tolerable, is grammatical, but the verse 
above quoted has not this quality. In verse the cor- 
responding terminations of lines should rhyme ; this 
rule is also neglected. Corresponding lines should have 
the same number of syllables in them ; that is, should 
have the same measure, the same quantity of accented 
and unaccented sounds. The versifier we have cited 
seems innocent of any such requirement. Indeed, the 
majority of those who publish rhymes never have 
paid the least attention to these essential elements of 
verse. Many, indeed, have never heard that there 



POETRY. 159 

are such elements. Most of the rejected " poetry " 
sent to periodicals and newspapers is of this class ; 
for persons who understand the mechanical part of 
poetry frequently know what they are about, know 
their own powers, and do not send out productions 
which have not some stamp of excellence upon 
them. 

A young mind of any force or emulation commonly 
takes to the experiment of verse. The exercise should 
always be encouraged and criticised. In this way 
the new thinker may learn the power of words agree- 
ably, and the nature of elevated ideas. He will con- 
sult dictionaries of synonyms. So much the better. 
The habit will increase his knowledge. He will keep 
what he acquires, because he will get it when he 
wants it. Turn his ambition to useful account. If 
you cannot make him a poet, you may make him a 
grammarian, a linguist, and a thinker, and save him 
from making himself ridiculous by teaching him the 
difference between prose, rhyme, verse, and poe- 
try. Let it be understood that " all persons may 
rhyme, but that it is given only to few to compose 
thoughts ; the first requisites of which are, that they 
be new, striking, and beautiful, and for the ex- 
pression of which it is further necessary that there be 
gifts and acquirements of language infinitely above 
those required for common purposes."* 

We may usefully trace the distinctions suggested a 
little further. Mere rhyme often assists the memory, 
?md if nervous, it may better strike the understanding 
than prose. Of this quality are some old lines on 
Feasting and Fasting, beginning thus : 

* " Chambers' Journal," No. 21, 1844. 



160 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Accustom early in your youth 
To lay embargo on your mouth ; 
And let no rarities invite 
To pall and glut your appetite ; 
But check it always, and give o'er 
"With a desire to eating more ; 
For where one dies by inanition, 
A thousand perish by repletion,* 

Old Dr. Johnson had not a fine ear, and he judged 
the artistic quality of poetry chiefly by the calcula- 
tion of syllables. He was a poet himself, but was 
chiefly distinguished for his power of making verse. 
His knowledge of literary art and his manly sense 
have given an elevation to his productions which 
have won for them distinction, and which show how 
good sense will command respect where imagina- 
tion is wanting. I quote his Prologue spoken by 
Garrick at the opening of the Theater Royal, Drury 
Lane, because, as well as illustrating his powers, it 
illustrates the topics of this book : 

When learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes 
First reared the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose. 
Each change of many-colored life he drew, 
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new : 
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
And panting Time toiled after him in vain. 
His powerful strokes presiding truth impressed, 
And unresisted passion stormed the breast. 

Then Jonson came, instructed from the school, 

To please in method, and invent by rule ; 

His studious patience and laborious art 

By regular approach essayed the heart. 

Cold approbation gave the lingering bays, 

For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise ; 

A mortal born, he met the general doom, 

But left, like Egypt's kings, a lasting tomb. 

* [<]. Hoynard, M. D., 1750, 



POETRY. 161 

The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame, 
Nor wished for Jonson's art, nor Shakspeare's flame. 
Themselves they studied — as they felt, they writ — 
Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. 
Vice always found a sympathetic friend ; 
They pleased their age, and did not aim to mend ; 
Yet bards like these aspired to lasting praise, 
And proudly hoped to pimp in future days. 
Their cause was general, their supports were strong, 
Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long; 
Till shame regained the post that sense betrayed, 
And virtue called oblivion to her aid. 

Then, crushed by rules, and weakened as refined, 

For years the power of tragedy declined ; 

From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, 

Till declamation roared while passion slept ; 

Yet still did virtue deign the stage to tread, 

Philosophy remained though nature fled ; 

But forced, at length, her ancient reign to quit, 

She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of wit ; 

Exulting folly hailed the joyous day, 

And pantomime and song confirmed her sway. 

Hard is his lot that here by fortune placed, 
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste ; 
With every meteor of caprice must play, 
And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day. 
Ah ! let not censure term our fate our choice, 
The stage but echoes back the public voice ; 
The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, 
For we that live to please, must please to live. 

Then prompt no more the follies you decry, 

As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die ; 

'Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence 

Of rescued nature and reviving sense ; 

To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show, 

For useful mirth and salutary woe ; 

Bid scenic virtue form the rising age, 

And truth diffuse her radiance from the stage. 

This prologue has wit, energy, and striking sense ; 
but Johnson's want of fancy is more evident in his 

11 



162 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

" Death of Charles the Twelfth," which has his per- 
fect force, but at the close only rises into the poetical. 
The last two lines have the true genius of poetical 
inspiration : 

On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 

How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide ; 

A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, 

No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; 

O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 

Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain ; 

No joys to him pacific scepters yield, 

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field. 

Behold surrounding kings their power combine, 

And one capitulate, and one resign. 

Peace courts his hand, but spends her charm in vain. 

"Think nothing gained," he cries, "till naught remain, 

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, 

And all be mine beneath the polar sky." 

The march begins in military state, 

And nations on his eye suspended wait. 

Stern famine guards the solitary coast, 

And winter barricades the realm of frost : 

He comes — not want and cold his course delay — 

Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day ! 

The vanquished hero leaves Ins broken bands, 

And shows his misery in distant lands ; 

Condemned a needy suppliant to wait, 

While ladies interpose and slaves debate. 

But did not chance at length her error mend ? 

Did no subverted empire mark his end ? 

Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? 

Did hostile millions press him to the grounds ? 

His fall was destined to a barren strand, 

A petty fortress and a dubious hand. 

He left a name at which the world grew pale, 

To point a moral, or adorn a tale. 

Johnson was a mechanical poet. Allan Cunning- 
ham, speaking of Chevy Chase, a genuine poem, 
which Sir Philip Sidney said fell on his ears like the 



POETRY. 163 

sound of a trumpet, suggests to us the highest ele- 
ments of poetry. " ' Chevy Chase' and ' Sir Andrew- 
Barton ' are history and truth : but history excited, 
elevated, and inspired : truth all life, spirit, and 
heroism." " Poetry," says Gilfillan, is " thought on 
fire." It is in its impassioned truth that we feel its 
presence ; it is for the beauty of ideas, distinct from 
the beauty of things, that we admire it. 

Personification is the soul of poetry. In few of 
our modern writers is this quality more remarkable 
than in Douglas Jerrold, whose writings are charac- ' 
terized by the omnipresence of personification. Bul- 
wer presents more of the appearance of personifica- 
tion in his writings, but Jerrold more of the reality. 
Bulwer's personifications seem often to be artificial, 
and suggested by capital letters, while Jerrold's are 
presented in deep-set, finished pictures. Many are 
the attributes of poetry, but its grandest power is 
personification. It peoples the world of fancy and 
thought with new forms ; it individualizes senti- 
ments; it adds to our intellectual acquaintances. 
How dim and indefinite are our impressions of the 
past ! but in the hands of Bryant what a majestic 
entity it becomes in that poem beginning : 

Thou unrelenting Past ! 
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, 

And fetters sure and fast 
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 

What a splendid ideality is in this poem realized ! 
What multitudinous forms are bodied forth! It is 
like the revelation of eternity, and the mind 
trembles and thrills as on the verge of a new 
world. 



164 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Poetry is found in various states, sometimes in the 
invocation of historic names, in allusions, in illustra- 
tions, in similes, sometimes in intensity of language, 
and sometimes in intensity of feeling. 

Poetry is often found independent of the verse it 
forms, as gems are found unset. " We would define 
poetry to be that mode of expression by which in- 
tensity of feeling on any subject is conveyed from 
one mind to another. Of course the more just, the 
more striking the mode of expression, the more com- 
plete and rapid will be the communication ; hence, 
and still more because many persons have not 
courage to dive beneath a rough surface, it is desir- 
able that the poet should be able to clothe his 
thoughts in mellifluous language. • But words are not 
poetry. Witness the beautiful idea of Professor 
Heeren : " Persepolis rising above the deluge of 
years." This, being a translated passage, is not de- 
pendent upon phraseology for its beauty. But who 
does not feel its exquisiteness, picturing at once the 
almost miraculous stability of those thread-like 
columns which the intemperate policy of Alexander 
failed to overthrow, and the vague, shapeless uncer- 
tainty which clouds the period to which their erec- 
tion is attributed ? The whole passage forms a most 
poetically drawn picture. 

" Again : ' Time sadly overcometh all things, and 
is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and 
looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes; while his 
sister, Oblivion, reclineth semi-somnous on a pyramid, 
gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian 
erections, and turning old glories into dreams. His- 
tory sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveler, as he 
paceth amazedly through those deserts, asketh of her, 



POETRY. 165 

Who builded them? and she mumbleth something, 
but what it is he knoweth not.' 

"Is not this poetry? and yet how quaint, almost 
inharmonious is its structure. Compare it with the 
famous simile in Pope's Homer, beginning, 

Thus, when the moon, refulgent lamp of night. 

"Will this passage, replete with the most gorgeous 
epithets, and clothed in the most harmonious verse, 
bear a comparison with the strangely appareled 
poetry of Sir Thomas Browne? It is not our ear 
which prompts the verdict ; it is our innate feeling 
of truth and beauty. If thus poetic genius can exist 
independent and despite of phraseology, may we not 
suppose it to be given (we do not say in a high de- 
gree) to multitudes of those whom the world would 
never accuse of being poets ? Our daily experience 
confirms this. We have heard a servant describe 
scenery with a beauty of feeling and an imagery 
which was true poetry ; and we hear a child talk 
poetry to her doll. Facility of illustration is an at- 
tribute of poetic genius we have met with in a 
laborer."* 

An instance of the highest form of poetry is Blanco 
White's great Sonnet to Night, which is perhaps the 
distinctest addition *to human speculation which the 
genius of the thinker has ever made. It happens, 
also, to be one of the most accomplished efforts of 
Elocution to deliver it well. It requires great and 
varied power, and the last line is remarkable for the 
distinctness of enunciation required : 

* "Sharpe's Magazine," No. 25, 1846, 



166 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew 

Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, 

Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 

Hesperus with the host of heaven came, 
And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
"Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 

"Within thy beams, Sun? or who could find, 
"While fruit, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, 

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ? 
Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife ? 
If Light conceals so much, wherefore not Life ? 

The previous discovery of Truth is implied by 
Rhetoric, which is the art of communicating Truth; 
and of all the forms of the enforcement of Truth, 
Poetry is the highest. All the powers of language, 
all the graces of literature, all the resources of genius, 
and nature, and feeling are employed to illustrate 
that splendor of expression, that harmony of thought, 
which, wedded to harmony of time and sound, men 
call Poesy. 



NOTES. 



A.— See page 27. 

Our author is quite liable to be misunderstood in this allusion to 
the ""theater." Judging from many passages of his book, and indeed 
from its whole tenor, nothing could have been further from his inten- 
tion than to present our modern theater as a model for pulpit speak- 
ing. At the present day the pulpit, in comparison with the theater, 
will suffer only in one particular, in its ease or naturalness. Though 
we can hadly be said to have any modern theater where anything 
like true eloquence is found, yet its highest excellence is its adapta- 
tion of utterance to the thought or sentiment. This quality of 
speaking, wherever it is acquired, on the stage, at the bar, or in the 
pulpit, effectually establishes entire freedom from monotone and tone. 
In this respect we have no doubt the speaking of the stage excels 
both that of the bar and pulpit. This, too, is doubtless its solitary 
redeeming quality, as well as the secret of its attraction and power. 
Nature loves herself, and delights to be portrayed in her own undis- 
guised simplicity, but turns away in disgust whenever she is carica- 
tured. This, it may be, is an important point at whicn the pulpit 
fails ; it is prosy, monotonous, and is rendered thereby not unfrequent- 
ly repulsive. To deviate in the least from the beaten track in into- 
nation, accent or emphasis, is thought unclerical, and hence most 
carefully avoided. Thus our Gospel minister plods on, content with 
an exact cold logic, reposing in a dead orthodoxy. Here lies the fatal 
plague-spot on sacred eloquence, the tones of which are sepulchral, and 
the touch of which is paralyzing to the warm and gushing heart 
of humanity. These clergymen "are solid men," but emotionless as 
a frozen ocean ! This, doubtless, is what was in our author's mind, 
though left unamplified. "We cannot suppose he would have introduc- 
ed into the pulpit anything akin to the low buffoonery of mounte- 
banks, which at the present day chiefly gives character to the theater. 
For it is ahead}' noticeable, that with a few who are aiming to be 



168 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

" star preachers," we have a disgusting imitation of the tragedian 
style in grotesque action and intonations, but so entirely destitute of 
its naturalness as to make it superlatively ridiculous. Such is the 
usual result of attempts at copying or adopting the style of others — 
the defects only will appear. Copyists will invariably fall below the 
original, which should lead a public speaker to avoid the practice 
as he would the open grave of his success. 

Clergymen are supposed to be men of sufficient sense and good 
taste to discover in the world of literature around them, what is and 
what is not adapted to their profession. Why not appropriate, then, 
the former and exclude the latter ? 



B— See page 34. 

Hamlet says to his players : 

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you, trippingly 
on the tongue ; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had 
as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too 
much with your hand, thus, but use all gently ; for in the very torrent 
tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must 
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. it 
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear 
a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, 
who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb 
shows and noise ; I would have such a fellow whipt for o'erdoing 
Termagant ; it out-herods Herod : Pray you, avoid it. 

" First PWtyer. I warrant your honor. 

" Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your 
tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this 
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for 
anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both 
at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to 
nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and 
the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this 
overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, can- 
not but make the judicious grieve ; the censure of which one must, m 
your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. there be 
players that I have seen play — and heard others praise and that high- 
ly — not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Chris- 
tians nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and 



NOTES. 169 

bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made 
men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 

" First Player. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us. 

"Ham. reform it altogether. And let those that play your 
clowns, speak no more then is set down for them, for there be of 
them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren 
spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary ques- 
tion of the play be then to be considered ; that's villainous, and shows 
a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. 

" Aye, so, God be wi' you. — Now I am alone, 

what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! 

Is it not monstrous that this player here, 

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 

Could force his soul so to his own conceit, 

That from her working all his visage wanned ; 

Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, 

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting 

With forms to his conceit ? And all for nothing ! 

For Hecuba ! 

"What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba 

That he should weep for her ? What would he do 

Had he the motive and the cue for passion 

That I have ? He would drown the stage with tears, 

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech ; 

Make mad the guilty, and appal the free, 

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed 

The very faculties of eyes and ears. 

Yet I, 

A dull and muddy -mettled rascal, peak 

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my. cause, 

And can say nothing ; no, not for a king, 

Upon whose property and most dear life 

A vile defeat was made , 

Humph ! I have heard 

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, 

Have, by the very cunning of the scene, 

Been struck so to the soul, that presently 

They have proclaimed their malefactions ; 

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 

With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players 

Play something like the murder of my father 



1-70 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks: 
I'll cut him to the quick ; if he do blench 
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen 
May be a devil ; and the devil hath power 
To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps 
Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 
(As he is very potent with such spirits,) 
Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds 
More relative than this. The play's the thing 
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." 



C— See page 38. 

"We cannot indorse the writer's view in this passage. The reasons 
assigned are invalid. If it were true that "religious sentiment" 
would not be universally received in a "mixed meeting," does that 
show that such sentiments should not be used in such a place ? We 
might ask, What other persuasion would influence all % If we should 
refuse to employ arguments or persuasions which would not have uni- 
versally the desired effect, we should use none at all. But he over- 
looks the obvious fact, that man is universally a being of " religious 
sentiment," with a profound inherent sense of right and wrong deep 
seated in his moral nature. However defective his standard of judg- 
ment may be, man everywhere is found with a strong admiration of 
what he judges to be right, and detestation of what is wrong ; the 
operations of a universal conscience. Hence, all men worship, how- 
ever erroneously, and no depths of ignorance or degradation are so 
great as to prevent it. It may indeed be doubted whether any 
other argument or persuasion is so universal in its adaptation and 
success as a religious one. This principle in man is as strong as 
general, and as safe as it is strong. The honest religious convictions 
of men are the last they yield. Even life itself will be sacrificed be- 
fore these. This is the primary and ultimate principle of our being, 
to which earth and heaven make their final appeal, touching man's 
highest interests, and we aver that all eloquence culminates around 
this glowing truth. When the orator has shorn himself of this mighty 
impulse of the human heart, he has lost his leverage to move the 
world. What is it that imparts to the inspired penmen their superhu- 
man eloquence, but their religious themes and their application to 
man's spiritual nature. Without emotion it is idle to talk of eloquence. 
The Christian orator, in the fact that he is a Christian, is moved by a 
deeper, purer, and stronger class of emotions than any other. Hence it 



NOTES. 171 

has become notorious that pagan orators have fallen very far below 
when compared with the Christian. "Whoever is constituted by na- 
ture or culture for high attainments in oratory, has a soul of the purest 
and most lofty conceptions and exquisite sensibilities ; and such a soul 
kindles into a glowing eloquence on no subject as it does on moral 
truth and beauty, God's attributes and man's immortality. 



D— See page 68. 

What is here said of the House of Commons should be applied 
with a slight modification to the pulpit. Embellishment seems out of 
place in a G-ospel sermon, except under strong excitement, and of the 
most thoroughly chastened and refined character. Dazzling, gorgeous, 
or flippant imagery attached to the solemn and weighty truths of God 
is an incongruity, obscuring those truths or diverting attention from 
them. Thoughtful people feel that their common sense is trifled 
with while the preacher seeks to amuse rather than instruct and save 
them, by which he shows he has no deep and abiding sense or truth- 
ful appreciation of what he utters. 

Pulpit declamation produces a similar result. With many noble ex- 
ceptions the training of modern scholars in our first institutions of learn- 
ing tends directly to establish an empty, heartless, and declamatory 
style of speaking. Let almost any student for six or nine years 
repeat in public every two weeks the composition of others, compo- 
sition which does not excite a single emotion of his own soul ; let him 
also put on all the airs of some eloquent man, when he will appear like 
David in Saul's armor, and nothing but a miracle will prevent him from 
falling into this style of speaking. 

Habit contracted during all these forming years will never be coun- 
teracted. A close observer will perceive that the most prominent fea- 
ture in modern pulpit speaking is. declamation, and it is not strange it 
produces no more effect. Cicero said : " We must never separate philos- 
ophy from eloquence." 

We see no possible remedy for this lamentable state of pulpit orato- 
ry, except what our author here recommends, namely, that the basis of 
all delivery should be a conversational tone. What was true with the 
House of Commons is true with all informed and thoughtful hearers, 
either there, in the Senate, or in the house of the Lord. When public 
speaking varies from a conversational tone, under strong excitement of 
the speaker, producing a corresponding emotiou of the hearers, they 
will move on together without repulsion. But when a speaker attempts 



172 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

to seize and carry by storm his auditors, while he is as cold and un- 
moved as they are, he commits a blunder by which he loses his power 
over all enlightened mind. Such hearers feel at once that they are not 
reasoned with as rational beings, but that an attempt is made to sweep 
them away as by a whirlwind, they know not where. Alas ! for our 
modern eloquence, how much of it is of this kind ? 



E— See page 76. 

This is a terrible sarcasm. "With a large class of English and 
American clergymen we are certain it is not true ; but we are not sure 
but it applies to a minority, at least, in our own country. The fear of 
advancing an idea never before put forth ; the fear of using an illustra- 
tion never before used ; the fear of making a gesture not named in the 
books, cripples the originality and naturalness of a minister. Hence 
the apparent constraint and stiff mechanical style so common in pulpit 
manner. Dullness and deadness among the hearers follow, while the 
clergy, like a becalmed sea, fall to a stupid level of a harmless mediocrity. 

Because there are a few cardinal points of revealed truth which it is 
admitted should be often repeated and insisted upon, keeping them 
prominently before the public mind, many, seem to suppose nothing 
else should be preached! This is called "loyalty to old Christianity," 
"abiding in the old paths." "Whatsoever is new in Christianity," 
it is said, "is false." This may be true of religion when spoken 
of as having been exhaustively studied, and the last truth and its 
application found out. But if everything in Christianity is false 
beyond what many clergymen know of it, there is very little in 
it either true or false. This is a fine subterfuge for forceless and 
unstudious men to hide behind : the orthodoxy of a few fundament- 
al doctrines as an apology for non-progress in Biblical learning. The 
truth is, there is more in the book of God than has ever yet been 
taught or found out. Those ministers of Christ who study his word 
as closely and severely as they do their classics and philosophies, are 
able to bring forth things both new and old. Much of the sterility of 
pulpit themes and mannerisms grows out of a too close confinement to 
a few theological points, to the general exclusion of those subjects ly- 
ing in the rich and comparatively unexhausted fields of Christian mo- 
rality, or the application of Christian principles to practical life. This 
neglect has proved exceedingly detrimental to the Christian Church, 
not only as it affects the interest and vivacity of pulpit style, but also 
the intelligent and exemplar character of Christian life. 



NOTES. 173 



F — See page 78. 

If what talent, learning, and piety there is in the pulpit were used to 
the greatest possible advantage, we believe the good accomplished 
thereby would be immensely increased. There are several facts con- 
fronting us at once, as we come to pass judgment on the talents and 
success of clergymen. Success not unfrequently bears no proportion to 
ability, but often seems to be the inverse ratio of it. Men acknowledged 
to be powerful in thought and literary accomplishments, make but a small 
impression as speakers. Why is this? Their power is latent, " unde- 
veloped." What has caused this ? It is not a lack of effort ; for usually 
these men are laborious and faithful. It is because the development has 
been obstructed. Trace it back and it will be found to lie in their wrong 
manner. If the style is monotonous, dull, and without emphasis ; if 
the voice is harsh and unsuited to the utterances ; if the logic is cold 
and unsympathizing ; if the language and illustrations have not 
vivacity and pertinency, no matter what the strength, the populace 
will leave that speaker. Were all hearers, scholars, and logical think- 
ers it would be otherwise. 

But we see, again, some inferior man in all these respects, who 
draws after him the crowd, and is powerfully effective. How is this ? 
It is his manner, nothing more nor less. Who believes that a Spurgeon 
bears any comparison in intellectual strength to a Butler, Paley, or 
Watson ? Yet it is no hyperbole to say that, as a speaker, he influences 
his thousands where they did their hundreds. Every one knows there 
is something repulsive and deadening in a certain kind of speaking, 
while a different mode of utterance is attracting and moving. Two 
things, however, trouble us greatly in contemplating this aspect of the 
subject ; we can hardly discover what it is that constitutes this differ- 
ence, and to which of the two classes we ourselves belong. Here we 
need very much the kind offices of some intelligent and thoroughly 
faithful friend, more faithful doubtless than we are with others, or we 
shall live and die in a perplexing ignorance of the causes of our ineffi- 
ciency, but greatly wondering that we are not better appreciated 



G.— See page 95. 

One will see from this instance alone how very dangerous, and fatal 
even, to dignified and solemn discourse is a careless and distasteful use 
of comparison. Let all accustomed to use it study well the effect thus 
produced. But when selected with good literary taste and refinement 



174 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

of feeling, figurative language adds much to the clearness, force, and 
beauty of public speaking. And the same may be said of anecdote or 
incident ; though the latter should be used far less frequently, and, if 
possible, with more severe discrimination. Excess of anecdote is a 
great blemish on much of our modern pulpit production ; and not only 
too much of it, but too carelessly selected, and too much prolonged. 
Few clergymen have an easy, solemn, and impressive style of relating 
anecdote. Sad and awkward is the attempt by all others. That a 
laugh or shout is created by some sharp incident or repartee by no 
means shows its success, but possibly the reverse of it. So with 
figures or comparisons. Some coarse, but apt simile may convulse an 
audience with laughter, and at the same time drive every serious 
thought and devotional feeling from all minds. Mournful result for 
him whose whole object is to create what he really dispels ! 

The various figures of speech when found only in the composition 
of accomplished speakers are of immense value to them and to their 
cause. Dry and stale subjects, to most hearers, may thus be clothed 
with new beauty, which will arrest the attention and engage the feel- 
ings of all. 

Nothing low, frivolous, or dissipating will be used in dignified dis- 
course, and no other has any place in the pulpit. Good judgment, 
good literary taste, and good skill in the use of language are necessary 
in order to a successful use of rhetorical figures. A speaker's culture, 
mental and social, will appear nowhere more palpably than in these 
selections. There are some subjects so dignified and sublime that 
they admit of no comparison, and are only lowered by any attempts at 
illustration. Therefore, when to use them, and when not to use them, 
and how to adapt them properly to the nature of the subjects, requires 
much critical knowledge and skill. If one were to say, " Curses, like 
chickens, come home to roost," we should be struck, if not pleased, 
with the unexpected resemblance, but disgusted with the lack of taste 
displayed in the selection of the illustration. But bow differently we 
are affected by the following metaphor of Byron : 

" Man ! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear." 

This fills the mind with beauty and sublimity. So bold, so chaste, 
so beautiful, and so condensed. "What exquisite taste and skill is here 
displayed in the use of language ! None but a master is equal to it. 
What an immense amount of practice in literary criticism must have 
been had to acquire such enviable power ! Suppose some novice had 
attempted to communicate this same thought through this metaphor, 
he doubtless would have extended it into a formal comparison by saying, 



NOTES. 175 

<; Man is just like a pendulum of a clock, swung back and forth between 
joy and sorrow." what a fall I How flat and dead is this com- 
pared with the former. "We see how much depends, not altogether 
on what is said, but how it is said. The marshalling of a few little 
words around the same idea in one case sends all the noble feelings 
of the heart upward, and in the other benumbs and stupefies them. 
Nothing furnishes this enviable power so much as a happy use of the 
metaphor, or surpressed comparison. 

Public speakers should frequently recur to that part of rhetoric 
which treats of comparison, metaphor, metonomy, synecdoche, hyper- 
bole, hypocatastasis, apostrophe, personification, allegory, or parable. 
These all have their laws or rules of use, and one whose chief busi- 
ness is public speaking, should know and use them properly if he 
would excel. These are all used in the Scriptures, and especially in 
the prophecies and our Saviour's teachings ; and he is but a poor and 
uncertain expounder who is not more or less familiar with them. 



H— See page 96. 

A public speaker who has a ready command of pleasantry, united 
with good sense, has a great element of power. It will impart variety 
and vivacity to his style, creating attention and interest with his hear- 
ers. This is as true of the minister of Christ as of any other speaker. 
Yet we consider it one of the most dangerous talents ever introduced 
into the pulpit. Yery few can use it at all without destroying the 
gravity with which sacred subjects should be treated. When used im- 
properly it distracts attention, dissipates the mind of the hearers, 
lowers the dignity and influence of the speaker, throwing an air of 
levity over the subject and all its surroundings. All this is terribly 
destructive of the great end of preaching. Fewer still can use 
pleasantry or wit in the pulpit with perfect refinement of taste, with- 
out which it is most sadly out of place. Indeed, no class of public 
speakers requires so little wit, or can use it so seldom without detri- 
ment, as the minister of the Gospel. His chief object is to enlighten the 
mind and move the affections ; while wit, so far from contributing to this 
object, has the opposite tendency, to destroy affection. "Wit may 
serve to break the force of an opponent's unjust assault, or relieve one 
from a momentary embarrassment in debate — never required in pulpit 
discourse ; but it can never reach and move the moral forces of our 
being. Hence its effect in the pnlpit is usually worse than useless — 
it is damaging. 

No sight is more melancholy than to see the sacred and sublime 



176 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

realities of God, the soul, and eternity, treated in a style bordering 
even upon the frivolous. Low witticisms, vulgar jokes, and coarse 
anecdotes may perhaps serve some purpose of third-rate lawyers and 
buffoons, but they ill become the embassador of Christ. The spright- 
ly and flippant young clergyman is in great danger here. The sense- 
less grin and unmeaning titter of an audience often mislead him into 
the opinion that his strength lies in wit and repartee ; and thus incited 
he is led on blindly, till his habits are remedilessly fixed, which not un- 
frequently ruin his usefulness forever. 



I.— See page 104. 

Here lies the grand secret of all eloquence — nature, nature in earnest 
Nature tortured is the common spoiler of good speaking. The trilling 
of the r, prolonging of certain vowel sounds, emphasizing certain 
words, not according to their importance, but according to their smooth 
and rolling sound, studying gesticulation according to rules only, thus 
putting an end to all eloquence. Extemporaneous speakers, especially, 
have not unfrequently a, habit of holding on to, and drawing out many 
words when the nest word does not readily occur, throwing in many 
connectives not necessary, simply as a sort of bridge over these chasms 
in language. A late author, Bautain, says: "You must not grope for 
your words while speaking, under penalty of braying like a donkey, 
which is the death of a discourse." The same disastrous results fol- 
low an effort to imitate some favorite speaker. Then the thoughts 
must be on that speaker, and the heart can be nowhere else. Mimic 
eloquence, if we could conceive such a thing, would be like a mimic 
volcano ! Genuine eloquence cannot be counterfeited. It has its seat 
in the heart. Pure and benevolent intentions, with earnestness and 
artlessness, always result in eloquence, provided there are no impedi- 
ments in the way of its utterance. Such impediments exist sometimes 
in the pathway of an eloquent nature. These are the cases where long 
and tedious training and practice are required, aside from a knowledge 
of the science, in order to success. A speaker with a feeling and enthu- 
siastic heart, and soul of fire, may have a short breath, a stammering 
tongue, an indistinct enunciation, or a harsh voice. Then a critical 
drill is his only hope. "While another speaker, with none of these im- 
pediments in his way, might be utterly ruined by that same process, 
as it might displace his naturally good qualities. 

Many young speakers, with the best natural abilities for oratory, 
without any of these great hinderances, have entered upon the most 



NOTES. 177 

elaborate and mechanical training, tampering with nature, spoiling its 
artless simplicity, and leaving upon it so many marks of the chisel, 
that in the end they have become less attractive and efficient than at 
first. Let nature alone, unless you or your friends can detect faults 
in her; but if so, remove them, however long the time it requires and 
whatever the cost. 

Speakers are slow and unskillful in detecting their own faults; 
friends are slow, equally slow in pointing out these faults to the faulty 
parties, unless invited and urged to do so. Two men of the same 
abilities, acquirements, and tastes, will each detect in the other ten 
faults as a speaker to one in himself. He is a wise man who continu- 
ally invites the closest criticism of his most intelligent and faithful 
friends. Nothing could possibly so much improve the pulpit oratory 
of this day as a resort to this means if well applied. 



J.— See page 106. 

While the modern clergy, with singular agreement, adopt this senti- 
ment of that distinguished divine and author, Archbishop Whately, 
they differ as widely on the question of written or unwritten prepara- 
tion. Here, surely, they do not exhibit their usual liberality and 
breadth of views, but show strangely the power -of prejudice and habit 
influencing the judgment to their own detriment. They will generally 
be found arranged into two extreme classes, one depending wholly on 
manuscript preparation, the other making little or no use of it, each 
confident in their own methods, abilities, and success, often ludi- 
crously so. 

We may be thought presumptuous when we say neither of these 
parties are safe teachers or guides, nor will they ordinarily be found 
model speakers. True eloquence will be found, we judge, to have 
embodied all the advantages of both these theories and cast aside the 
lumber of eadli. 

Few men have been found who can deliver eloquently, speaking 
closely from manuscript. They not only must have the attention occu- 
pied with the notes, which will interfere with an uninterrupted flow 
of the feelings, but that very attention to the notes indicates that the 
feelings have not been brought into that close contact with the sub- 
ject, without which the emotional part of our nature cannot be deeply 
stirred, and without this there can be little true eloquence. Then, too, 
there is this apparent and formidable difficulty, to read with perfect 
naturalness, or as much so as Ave converse or talk. Who of the 

12 



178 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

thousands of readers have succeeded in this ? Most of them imagine 
they have ; but ask their most intelligent hearers. 

But, on the other hand, we judge it is equally true, as a general 
thing, that those ministers who ignore wholly, and are so severe on 
"note preaching," are anything but eloquent men or good extempo- 
rizers. They have little or nothing to do with the pen, but rely upon 
their strong, rotund, and sonorous voices, which fill all the place 
where they are assembled and all ears within respectable distance. 
They are not apparently so anxious to say anything new and important 
as to say it with that same fine voice, very loud, probably, and with 
the same emphasis and cadence they would say a thousand other 
things more or less important. The results are, they are monotonous 
in style and uninstructive in thought, dull speakers, though they often 
suppose themselves quite eloquent, and are surprised that they are no 
better appreciated and more sought for. They are as little distin- 
guished for extensive and critical reading as for close thinking, but 
rely mostly upon their uncultivated vocal powers. 

Neither of these two classes of ministers embrace many of our elo- 
quent men, though large numbers of our worthy men. They write 
and read well ; but good writers and readers are not usually emotional 
speakers. They are more generally elegant than eloquent. Their 
extreme devotion to notes has wrought badly for their speaking 
powers, while in other respects it has immensely improved them. 
There is an accuracy and finish in their productions which many an 
eloquent man sighs in vain for. As writers and authors they would 
leave their eloquent competitors far in the rear, out not as speakers. 

These criticisms lie also with about the same force against the 
practice of preaching memoriter. The continual tax and strain upon 
the memory checks the free flow of feeling and absorbs attention 
nearly as much as notes, so obviously that the most casual observer 
can hardly fail to detect the speaker who has fallen into this unfortu- 
nate habit. 

Generally the most successful ministers will be found among those 
who have carefully and largely practiced themselves in writing what 
they have preached, by which they have created for themselves a 
neat and elegant style of composition without redundancy or poverty, 
and then speaking not so much with exact conformity to what they 
have written as with a neat, ready, and chaste style, of which they 
have made themselves masters, and in which they can trust them- 
selves with entire confidence. This is the product of much study, 
great practice, and critical observation ; and it is the fatal blunder of 
novices to suppose themselves ready made in this accomplishment. 

This successful class of speakers, presupposed to be pious and 



NOTES. 179 

scholarly, when they speak, whether they have papers about them or 
not, neither read nor declaim, but talk fluently and eloquently. No 
man can sustain a claim to oratory, except of a mushroom and stump- 
orator sort, who is not a practiced and critical writer ; and such as set 
up that unfounded claim would probably blush to see their own oratory 
on paper, unless too destitute of scholarship to discover its inelegancies, 
repetitions, and redundancies. 

A young man, with some brilliant parts, while he has the freshness 
and vivacity of youth, with a good voice and good personal appear- 
ance, may win from an unlearned and unthinking audience praise for 
oratory without this solid foundation for it ; but, alas ! it will be like 
the morning cloud and early dew, and he will soon sink to his real 
level, which is that of the thoughtless and senseless crowd about him, 
and the sun of his fame and prospects will set at noon. Such is the 
short and sad record of many a young orator of hot-house growth, 
whose natural talents, with proper training and patient practice, would 
have carried him high in the list of'fame. 



K.— See page 107. 

On the preparation and delivery of an extemporaneous sermon, we 
are allowed by the generous publisher, Charles Scribner, 124 Grand- 
street, New York, to make the following brief extracts from a late 
publication of his : " Art of Extempore Speaking. Hints for the 
Pulpit, the Senate, and the Bar ;" a work which we most cordially 
recommend to all our readers. 

"In every discourse, if it have life, there is a parent idea or fertile 
germ, and all the parts of the discourse are like the principal organs 
and the members of an animated body. The propositions, expressions, 
and words resemble those secondary organs which connect the prin- 
cipal, as the nerves, muscles, vessels, and tissues attaching them to 
one another, and rendering them copartners in life and death. Then 
amid this animate and organic mass there is the spirit of life, which is 
in the blood, and is everywhere diffused with the blood from the heart, 
life's center, to the epidermis. So in eloquence, there is the spirit of 
the words, the soul of the orator, inspired by the subject, his intelli- 
gence illumined with mental light, which circulates through the whole 
body of the discourse, and pours therein brightness, heat, and life. A 
discourse without a parent idea is a stream without a fountain, a plant 
without a root, a body without a soul ; empty phrases, sounds which 
beat the air, or a tinkling cymbal 



180 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

" He who wishes to speak in public must, above all, see clearly on 
what he has to speak, and rightly conceive what he has to say. The 
precise determination of the subject, and the idea of the discourse, 
these are the two first stages of the preparation. 

"It is not so easy as it seems to know upon what one is to 
speak; many orators, at least, seem to be ignorant of it, or to 
forget it in the course of their address ; for it is sometimes their 
ease to speak of all things except those which would best relate 
to the occasion. This exact determination of the subject is still 
more needful in extemporization ; for there many more chances 
of discursiveness exist. The address not being sustained by the 
memory or notes, the mind is more exposed to the influences of 
the moment; and nothing is required but the failure or inexactitude 
of the word, the suggestion of a new thought, a little inattention, to 
lure it from the subject, and throw it into some crossroad which 
takes it far away. Add the necessity of continuing when once a 
speech is begun, because to stop is embarrassing, to withdraw a 
disgrace Therefore, in order to lead and sustain the progress of a 
discourse, one must clearly know whence one starts, and whither one 
goes, and never lose sight of either the point of departure or the des- 
tination. But to effect this the road must be measured beforehand, 
and the principal distance marks must have been placed. There is a 
risk also of losing one's way, and then, either one arrives at no end, 
even after much fatigue, productive of interminable discourses leading 
to nothing ; or if one at last reaches the destination, it is after an in- 
finity of turns and circuits, which have wearied the hearer as well as 

the speaker, without profit or pleasure for anybody. 

A question well stated is half solved. 

'"It is necessary that the orator before speaking should be collected; 
he should be wholly absorbed in his ideas, and proof against the in- 
terruptions and impressions which surround him. The slightest 
distraction to which he yields may break the chain of his thoughts, 
mar his plan, and even sponge out of his mind the very remembrance 
of his subject itself. This appears incredible, and I would not believe 
it myself had I not experienced it. 

" All who extemporize have had the misfortune some time or other, 
to fall into digressions, prolixities, and appendages, which cause the 
main object to be lost to view, and wear out or render languid the 
attention of the audience. In the warmth of exposition a man is not 
always master of his own words, and when new thoughts arise, they 
may lead a long way from the subject, to which there is sometimes a 
difficulty in returninrr. Xf Iip does not hold with a firm hai 



NOTES. 181 

thread of his thoughts he will never come to speak in an endurable 
manner; and though-by his fine passages he may surprise, amuse, and 
dazzle the hearer, he will not suggest one idea to his mind, nor instill a 
single, feeling into his ear, because there will be neither order nor 
unity, and therefore no life in his discourse. 

" Most orators spoil their speeches by lengthiness, and prolixity is 
the principal disadvantage of extemporaneous speaking. In it, more 
than in any other, one wants time to be brief, and there is a per- 
petual risk of being carried away by the movement of the thoughts or 
the expressions. 

"It sometimes happens, unfortunately, that you are barely into your 
subject when you should end ; and then, with a confused feeling of all 
that you have omitted, and a sense of what you might still say. you 
are anxious to recover lost ground in some degree, and you begin 
some new development when you ought to be concluding. This tardy 
and unseasonable, yet crude aftergrowth has the very worst effect up- 
on the audience, which, already fatigued, becomes impatient and listens 
no longer. The speaker loses his words and his trouble, and every- 
thing which he adds by way of elucidating or corroborating what he 
has said, spoils what has gone before, destroying the impression of it. 
He repeats himself unconsciously, and those who still listen follow 
him with uneasiness, as men watch from shore a bark which seeks to 
make port and cannot. It is a less evil to turn short round and finish 
abruptly than thus to tack incessantly without advancing; for the 
greatest of a speaker's misfortunes is that he should bore. 

" They who have not learned first to write, generally speak badly 
and with difficulty, unless indeed they have that fatal facility, a thou- 
sand times worse than hesitation or than silence, which drowns thought 
in floods of words or in a torrent of copiousness, sweeping away good 
earth and leaving behind sand and stones alone. Heaven keep us 
from those interminable talkers, such as are often to be found in 
Southern countries, who deluge you relatively to anything and to 
nothing with a shower of dissertation, and a down-pouring of their 
eloquence ! During nine tenths of the time there is not one rational 
thought in the whole of this twaddle, carrying along in its course 
every kind of rubbish and platitude. The class of speakers who pro- 
duce a speech so easily, and who are ready at the shortest moment 
to extemporize a speech, a dissertation, or a homily, know not how to 
compose a tolerable sentence ; and I repeat, that, with such exceptions 
as defy all rule, he who has not learned how to write, will never know 
how to speak. 

" Nor must he rely on the notes which he may carry in his hand to 



182 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. 

help him in the exposition and save him from breaking down. 
Doubtless they may have their utility, especially in business-speaking, 
as at the bar, at the council board, or in a deliberative assembly. 
They are the material part, the baggage of'the orator, of which he 
should disencumber himself to the utmost of his power. They are the 
most utterly worthless when they seem the most necessary. In the 
most fervid moments of extemporaneous speaking, when light teems, 
and the sacred fire burns, when the mind is hurried along upon the 
tide of thought, everything should proceed from within. Then -nothing 
so thoroughly freezes the oratorical flow as to consult these wretched 
notes." 



SACRED ELOQUENCE : THE BRITISH PULPIT. 



About fifteen years ago our readers were presented 
with a critique on "French Sermons," concluding with 
an intimation that at some future period the subject 
would be resumed, with a special reference to the 
British pulpit.f In that article surprise was expressed 
that there should be so small a proportion of sermons 
destined to live ; that out of the million and upward 
preached annually throughout the empire there should 
be so very few that are remembered three whole 
days after they are delivered; fewer still that are 
committed to the press ; scarcely one that is not in a 
few years absolutely forgotten. " If any one," it was 
added, " were for the first time informed what preach- 
ing was; if, for example, one of the ancient critics 
had been told that the time would come when vast 
multitudes of persons should assemble regularly to be 
addressed, in the midst of their devotions, upon the 
most sacred truths of a religion sublime beyond all 
the speculations of philosophers, yet in all its most 
important points simple and of the easiest apprehen- 

* Edinburgh Review, October, 1840. — Sermons to a Country Congre- 
gation. By Augustus William Hare, late Fellow of New College, 
and Rector of Alton Barnes. 2 vols., 8vo. ; London, 1839. 

f No. LXXXIX, pp. 147, 148. 



184 SACKED eloquence: 

sion ; that with those truths were to be mingled dis- 
cussions of the whole circle of human duties, accord- 
ing to a system of morality singularly* pure and 
attractive ; that the more dignified and the more 
interesting parts of national affairs were not to be 
excluded from the discourse ; that, in short, the most 
elevating, the most touching, and the most interesting 
of all topics were to be the subject-matter of the 
address, directed to persons sufficiently versed in 
them, and assembled only from the desire they felt 
to hear them handled, surely the conclusion would at 
once have been drawn that such occasions must train 
up a race of the most consummate orators, and that 
the effusions to which they gave birth must needs 
cast all other rhetorical compositions into the shade. 
. . . How then comes it to pass that instances are so 
rare of eminent eloquence in the pulpit ?" 

Though we are willing to believe that some im- 
provement in this branch of eloquence is gradually 
taking place, we are still of opinion that the above 
question is as pertinent as ever. It seems proper, there- 
fore, to investigate the causes of so singular a phenom- 
enon, and to urge upon those who are intrusted with 
so powerful an instrument of instruction as the 
pulpit, the duty of endeavoring to turn it to better 
account. 

To this important subject we propose to devote the 
present essay, premising that it is not at all our inten- 
tion to discuss any doctrinal questions, or to examine 
how much of truth or error there may be in any 
given system of religious belief; we consider only 
the general conditions on which all religious instruc- 
tion (presupposing it to be sound) should be con- 
veyed, and especially the style and the manner 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 185 

peculiarly appropriated to this department of public 
speaking. 

Without departing from the above resolution we 
may, however, be allowed to make one obvious 
remark, even in relation to what ought to be the 
substance of that eloquence of which we propose more 
particularly to consider only the form. It is this : 
that, whatever diversities of opinion and of doctrine 
it may present, it is of course implied that there are 
limits to these diversities. We cannot expect that 
any system will produce its proper effects, however 
eloquent and forcible the form in which it is profess- 
edly exhibited, unless its essential peculiarities be 
preserved. A Mollah must not preach the doctrines 
of a Brahmin if he wishes to see what are the genuine 
results of Islamism, nor a Pundit interpret his sacred 
books by the Koran of the prophet. In the same 
manner, if the Christian preacher (as was too often 
the case in times that are past) be nothing more than 
what Bishop Horsley calls " an ape of Epictetus," a 
bad personation of Seneca tricked out in a gown and 
cassock, or a doctor of metaphysics, who, by some 
strange blunder, has mistaken the church for the 
lecture-room, we cannot rationally expect that Chris- 
tianity should produce its genuine results. What are 
the precise limits within which the essentials of 
Christian doctrine may be exhibited in their integ- 
rity it is not for us to determine; to do so would 
be to venture within that province which we have 
formally renounced. But that the essence of the 
doctrines and precepts of this peculiar system may 
be fully exhibited, notwithstanding considerable 
diversity of opinions on subordinate points, no man 
of candor will deny. The names of eminent men of 



186 SACKED ELOQUENCE: 

very different parties will instantly suggest themselves 
to the memory of the reader, to whom, we are con- 
vinced, not one individual of the Christian community 
would deny the title of " preachers of righteousness." 

But supposing the requisite purity of doctrine 
secured — of which we must leave men to form their 
own opinion — the mode in which that doctrine is 
exhibited and enforced is only second in importance. 
And the proof is found in this, that, if we appeal to 
an individual of any denomination, he will tell you 
that he knows preachers whom he cannot but account 
equally worthy and excellent, and equally in pos- 
session of the truth, (that is, who think exactly with 
himself, for that is the infallible standard by which 
each man measures the aberrations of his neighbor,) 
who yet shall produce the most opposite effects on 
him. The one shall send him to sleep in spite of 
himself, and the other shall not permit him to sleep 
even if he would. Yet the substance of their com- 
munications, he himself being the judge, is in each 
case precisely the same. 

We have long been convinced that the inefficiency 
that so generally distinguishes pulpit discourses is in 
a great degree owing to the two following causes: 
First, that preachers do not sufficiently cultivate, as 
part of their professional education, a systematic 
acquaintance with the principles upon which all 
effective eloquence must be founded, with the limita- 
tions under which their topics must be chosen, and 
the mode in which they must be exhibited in order 
to secure popular impression; and, secondly, that 
they do not, after they have assumed their sacred 
functions, give sufficient time or labor to the prepa- 
ration of their discourses. 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 187 

Many and splendid, exceptions to these statements 
no doubt there are. "We only fear that some for 
whom the consolation of this saving clause was not 
intended will, nevertheless, complacently take the 
benefit of it. We shall offer some observations on 
both the causes of failure above specified at the close 
of the present article. 

The appropriateness of any composition, whether 
written or spoken, is easily deduced from its object. 
If that object be to instruct, convince, or persuade, 
or all these at the same time, we naturally expect 
that it should be throughout of a direct and earnest 
character, indicating a mind absorbed in the avowed 
object, and solicitous only about what may subserve 
it. We expect that this singleness of purpose should 
be seen in the topics discussed, in the arguments 
selected to enforce them, in the modes of illustration, 
and even in the peculiarities of style and expression. 
We expect that nothing shall be introduced merely 
for the purpose of inspiring an interest, either in the 
thoughts or in the language, apart from their perti- 
nency to the object ; or of exciting an emotion of 
delight for its own sake, as in poetry, although it is 
quite true that the most vivid pleasure will necessa- 
rily result from perceiving an exact adaptation of the 
means to the end. We cannot readily pardon mere 
beauties or elegances, striking thoughts or graceful 
imagery, if they are marked by this irrelevancy, since 
they serve only to impede the vehement current of 
argument or feeling. In a word, we expect nothing 
but what, under the circumstances of the speaker, is 
prompted by nature; nature, not as opposed to a 
deliberate effort to adapt the means to the ends, and 
ito do what is to be done as well as possible, for this, 



188 SACKED ELOQUENCE : 

though in one sense art, is also the truest nature ; but 
nature, as opposed to whatever is inconsistent with 
the idea that the man is under the dominion of gen- 
uine feeling, and bent upon taking the directest path 
to the accomplishment of his object. True eloquence 
is not like some painted window, which both trans- 
mits the light of day variegated and tinged with a 
thousand hues, and diverts the attention from its 
proper use to the pomp and splendor of the artist's 
doing; it is a perfectly transparent medium, trans- 
mitting light, without suggesting a thought about the 
medium itself. Adaptation to the one single object 
is everything. 

These maxims have been universally recognized in 
deliberative and forensic eloquence. Those who 
have most severely exemplified them have ever been 
regarded as the truest models ; while those who have 
partially violated them, though still considered in a 
qualified sense very eloquent, have failed to obtain 
the highest place. Nor, it may be safely said, would 
the irrelevant discussions, the florid declamation, the 
imaginative finery, the tawdry ornament which too 
often disgrace the pulpit, which too often are heard 
in it, not only without astonishment, but with admi- 
ration, be tolerated for a moment in the senate or at 
the bar. 

Much of this is no doubt to be attributed to the 
deplorable fact that the great themes of religion are 
viewed (not by preachers alone, but by all mankind) 
with emotions so sadly disproportioned to their in- 
trinsic importance. Hence the difficulty of finding 
the man who is as thoroughly interested in the sub- 
jects of religion as thousands are in discussions relat- 
ing to the timber or sugar duties, to a grant of pub- 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 189 

lie money, or a vote of supply. Even a trial at the 
Old Bailey for stealing a couple of pocket handker- 
chiefs too often stirs deeper emotion, both in speakers 
and hearers, than the most momentous realities con- 
nected with the future and unseen world. 

This, however, is only a partial solution of the 
difficulty; since the maxims we have above adverted 
to are often and grievously violated by multitudes 
of preachers, the consistency of whose lives, and 
whose diligent discharge of the ordinary duties of 
their office, bespeak them to be under the dominion 
of religious principle. Their failings, therefore, as 
public speakers, can be fairly accounted for only by 
their having adopted an erroneous idea of what the 
most effective style of speaking is ; or, which is more 
frequent, from their never having attained any dis- 
tinct idea of it at all. 

. We have long felt convinced that the eloquence 
of the pulpit, in its general character, has never been 
assimilated so far as it might have been, and ought 
to have been, to that which has produced the great- 
est effect elsewhere ; and which is shown to be of the 
right kind both by the success which has attended it, 
and by the analysis of the qualities by which it has 
been distinguished. If we were compelled to give a 
brief definition of the principal characteristics of this 
truest style of eloquence, we should say it was '"'prac- 
tical reasoning, animated by strong emotion ;" or if 
we might be indulged in what is rather a descrip- 
tion than a definition of it, we should say that it con- 
sisted in reasoning on topics calculated to inspire a 
common interest, expressed in the language of ordi- 
nary life, and in that brief, rapid, familiar style which 
natural emotion ever assumes. The former half of 



190 SACKED ELOQUENCE: 

this description would condemn no small portion of 
the compositions called " Sermons," and the latter 
half a still larger portion. 

We would not be misunderstood. It is far, very 
far, from our intention to speak in terms of the slightest 
depreciation of the immense treasures of learning, of 
acute disquisition, of profound speculation, of power- 
ful controversy, which the literature of the English 
pulpit contains. In these points it cannot be sur- 
passed. In vigor and originality of thought, in argu- 
mentative power, in extensive and varied erudition, it 
as far transcends all other literature of the same kind 
as it is deficient in the qualities which are fitted to 
produce popular impression. We merely assert that 
the greater part of " Sermons " are not at all entitled 
to the name, if by it be meant discourses specially 
adapted to the object of instructing, convincing, or 
persuading the common mind. 

We are well aware that the very nature of pulpit 
eloquence forbids anything more than a partial 
assimilation to that of the senate or the bar; that 
certain modifications will be instantly suggested by 
the topics with which it deals and the objects which 
it has in view. It must often be to a far greater ex- 
tent simply didactic than eloquence of any other 
kind ; though the practical purpose to which all 
matter of this sort is to be immediately applied, will 
still secure an earnestness and animation in the style 
in very observable contrast with the even tone and 
measured periods of literary disquisition. It never 
can appeal to those tumultuous passions, nor rouse 
those vehement feelings which may be gladly aban- 
doned to the arena of politics ; while those sublime 
realities, connected with the future and the invisible, 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 191 

which form its great and inspiring themes, must 
necessarily demand more minute and ample descrip- 
tion, in order vividly to impress the imagination, 
than would \>e readily tolerated either in deliberative 
or forensic eloquence. Still this is only saying that, 
as a peculiar species of eloquence, it has something 
peculiar; as a species of the genus it ought still to 
possess the generic qualities. The degree in which 
it can exhibit and embody those qualities is another 
question ; and though it may be a point of some dif- 
ficulty to ascertain how far this object may be at- 
tained, it is not difficult to show either that it might 
have been attained more completely than it has been, 
or that in many instances it has been neglected alto- 
gether. ' 

We have said, for example, that the principal 
characteristic of all effective eloquence consists in 
reasoning on topics calculated to inspire a common 
interest in the mass of a common audience. Who 
can take even the most hasty inspection of our pulpit 
literature without perceiving how generally this obvi- 
ous attribute has been neglected, especially till 
within a comparatively recent period ? What can be 
more hopeless than the attempt to engage the atten- 
tion, or interest the feelings of a common audience in 
metaphysical subtleties ? And yet abstruse specula- 
tions on the " origin of evil," on " moral necessity," 
on the " self-determining power," on the " ultimate 
principles of ethics," on the "immortality of the 
soul," as proved from its indiscerptibility and we 
know not what, on the " eternal fitness of things," on 
the " moral sense," with other still more recondite 
speculations on themes which it is almost impious 
and perfectly useless to touch, were of common oc- 



192 SACRED ELOQUENCE: 

eurrence in our older pulpit literature ; and they are 
not infrequent, though not pursued to the same ex- 
tent, even now. For our own parts we believe that 
the discussion of such subjects is about as profitable 
in a popular assembly as would be that of the well- 
known questions, as to whether angels can pass from 
one point of space to another without passing through 
the intermediate points, and whether they can visually 
discern objects in the dark. Dr. Donne has proposed 
a series of questions for over-refined speculators in 
which he keenly satirizes all such superfluous sub- 
tilty. It is only to be lamented that he did not more 
effectually learn his own lesson in the composition 
of his own sermons, in some of which he has touched 
upon subjects more fit for Thomas Aquinas than the 
Christian preacher. We would not do even Thomas 
Aquinas injustice, however; we verily believe that 
the great schoolman would have stood aghast at the 
idea of dragging such questions out of the obscurity 
of the schools into common daylight, and making 
them the themes of popular declamation. 

We gladly admit that the modern pulpit is fast 
outgrowing these extravagances ; that such discus- 
sions are both less frequent, and pursued to a much 
more limited extent, than they used to be. Yet it is 
no uncommon thing to find the young preacher, fresh 
from his metaphysics or his philosophy, touching 
upon them just to a sufficient extent to exhaust and 
dissipate the attention of his audience before he 
comes to more important and more welcome matter ; 
or indulging in allusions, and employing phraseology, 
with reference to them, wholly unintelligible to the 
in ass. Others, and they form a much larger class, 
are fond of subjects which are only one degree less 



THE BEITISH PULPIT. 193 

\13eful, and which, though they ought not to be ex- 
cluded from the pulpit, need to be very rarely entered 
upon. We allude to the discussions connected with 
" Natural Theology," and the first " Principles of 
Morals." Such preachers are continually proving 
that there is a God, to those who readily admit there 
is a divine revelation ; that the marks of design in 
the universe prove that there is an intelligent cause, 
to those who never had a single doubt upon the sub- 
ject; that death is not an eternal slSep, to those who 
find no difficulty in admitting that there is a heaven 
and a hell ; that man is a moral agent, to those who 
cannot even conceive that he can be otherwise ; and 
that those first principles of ethics are certainly true, 
which even savages themselves would be ashamed to 
disavow. We say not that such topics should be ex- 
cluded from the pulpit, but only that they should 
form a very inferior element in its ordinary prelec- 
tions. The atheist and deist, though rarely found 
in Christian congregations, should not be entirely 
neglected ; and those who are neither the one nor the 
other should certainly be in possession of arguments 
which may serve to confute both, and to give an in- 
telligent reason " of the hope that is in them." But 
it may safely be taken for granted, in ordinary cases, 
that the great bulk of those who attend any Christian 
place of worship already believe all these things ; in 
a word, admit the truth of that revelation, the expo- 
sition and enforcement of which are the preacher's 
proper object. What should we say to a member of 
Parliament who should treat the House of Commons 
(characteristically impatient of whatever does not 
bear on practical objects) to formal disquisitions on 
points on which all the members are agreed : on the 

13 



194 SACKED ELOQUENCE: 

first principles of law and government, for example ; 
or on any of those abstract questions which were 
discussed properly enough by Filmer and Locke. 
Allusions to such matters, so far as they bear on the 
mattef in hand, and brief references to general prin- 
ciples which embrace the particular instances under 
discussion, are all that would be tolerated. 

Even where the topics are not such as are fairly 
open to censure^a large class of preachers, especially 
among the young, grievously err by investing them 
with the technicalities of science and philosophy ; 
either because they foolishly suppose they thereby 
give their compositions a more philosophical air, or 
because they disdain the homely and the vulgar. 
We remember hearing of a worthy man of this class, 
who, having occasion to tell his audience the simple 
truth, that there was not one Gospel for the rich and 
another for the poor, informed them that, " if they 
would not be saved on * general principles 5 they 
could not be saved at all !" With such men it is not 
sufficient to say, that such and such a thing must be, 
but there is always a " moral or physical necessity " 
for it. The will is too old-fashioned a thing to be 
mentioned, and everything is done by " volition ;" 
duty is expanded into " moral obligation," men not 
only ought to do this, that, Or the other, it is always 
by " some principle of their moral nature ;" they 
not only like to do so and so, but they are " impelled 
by some natural propensity;" men not only think 
and do, but they are never represented as thinking 
and doing without some parade of their " intellectual 
processes and active powers." Such discourses are 
full of " moral beauty," and " necessary relations," 
and " philosophical demonstrations," and "laws of na- 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 195 

ture," and " a priori and a posteriori arguments." 
If some simple fact of physical science is referred to 
in the way of argument or illustration, it cannot be 
presented in common language, but must be exhib- 
ited in the pomp of the most approved scientific 
technicalities. If there be a common and scientific 
name for the same object, ten to one that the latter 
is adopted. Heat straightway becomes "caloric," 
lightning, the " electric fluid ;" instead of plants and 
animals, we are surrounded by " organized substan- 
ces ;" life is nothing half so good as the " vital prin- 
ciple ;" " phenomena " of all kinds are very plenti- 
ful ; these phenomena are " developed," and " com- 
bined," and " analyzed," and in short, done every- 
thing with, except being made intelligible. Not only 
is such language as this obscurely understood, or not 
understood at all, but even if perfectly understood, 
must necessarily be far less effective than those sim- 
ple terms of common life which for the most part 
may be substituted for them. The sermons of Augus- 
tus William Hare, referred to at the commencement 
of this essay, may serve to show how the abstract 
terms of philosophy may be advantageously transla- 
ted into simple and racy English.* 

* The following extract from Dr. Campbell's " Lectures on Pulpit 
Eloquence " is worth notice : " There is indeed a sort of literary dic- 
tion, which sometimes the inexperienced are ready to fall into insensi- 
bly, from their having been much more accustomed to the school and 
to the closet, to the works of some particular schemer in philosophy, 
than to the scenes of real life and conversation. This fault, though 
akin to the former, is not so bad ; as it may be without affectation, 
and when there is no special design of catching applause. It is, in- 
deed, most commonly the consequence of an immoderate attachment 
to some one or other of the various systems of ethics or theology 
that have in modern times been published, and obtained a vogue 
among their respective partisans. Thus the zealous disciple of Shaf'tes- 



196 SACKED ELOQUENCE: 

Equally at variance with common sense are the 
topics which some few preachers, much addicted to 
Biblical criticism, but strangely ignorant of its prac- 
tical uses, and the limits within which alone it can 
be properly applied, sometimes think proper to intro- 
duce into sermons. Their talk is much of " colla- 
tions of manuscripts," of " various readings," of the 
" Vulgate," of " Coptic and Syriac versions," of 
" interpolations," of the " original languages," of 
" Hebrew points," etc., etc.,. etc. They totally for- 
get, if they ever knew, that all these things are the 
mere instruments with which they work ; and that 
the results, expressed in simple language, and with- 
out any ostentatious technicalities, are all with which 
the people have to do. If such a man were building 
a house, he would doubtless suffer the scaffolding to 
stand about it as a notable embellishment ; or if he 
were emploj^ed to lay down a carpet, he would leave 
the hammer and nails upon the floor as memorials of 
his labor and ingenuity. 

The selection of inappropriate topics is the more 

bury, Akenside, and Hutcheson is no sooner licensed to preach the 
Gospel, than with the best intentions in the world, he harangues the 
people from the pulpit on the moral sense and universal benevolence ; 
he sets them to inquire whether there be a perfect conformity in their 
affections to the supreme symmetry established in the universe ; he is 
full of the sublime and beautiful in things, the moral objects of right 
and wrong, and the proportional affection of a rational creature toward 
them. He speaks much of the inward music of the mind, the harmony 
and the dissonance of the passions ; and seems, by his way of talking, 
to imagine, that if a man have this same moral sense, which he con- 
siders as the mental ear, in due perfection, he may tune his soul with as 
much ease as a musician tunes his musical instrument. The disciple of 
Dr. Clarke, on the contrary, talks to us in somewhat of a soberer strain 
and less pompous phrase, but not a jot more edifying, about unalter- 
able reason and the eternal fitness of things, about the conformity of 
our actions to their immutable relations aud essential differennes.'' 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 197 

inexcusable, when we consider the large provision of 
subjects of enduring and universal interest which is 
made in the very book which the preacher professes 
to interpret. He may freely expatiate over the 
ample circle of its doctrines and precepts, in all their 
applications to the endless diversities of life, and the 
endless peculiarities of individual character ; he may 
find an equally legitimate province in the interpreta- 
tion of difficult passages, or the reconciliation of ap- 
parent discrepancies ; in the illustration of manners, 
customs, and antiquities ; and in the elucidation of 
those ever- varied and deeply interesting narratives in 
which, for the profoundest reasons, the doctrines of 
Scripture are everywhere imbedded, as if for the very 
purpose both of securing the requisite variety in pul- 
pit discourses, and preventing the truths of religion 
from assuming the form of naked abstractions. "Well 
would it be if in this respect, as well as in others, the 
preacher would make the Bible the object of his sed- 
ulous imitation. It is everywhere a practical book ; 
it contains no over-curious speculations, no superflu- 
ous subtleties. On the contrary, as often remarked, 
there is a singular silence maintained in that volume 
on all that tends merely to gratify our curiosity. The 
very mysteries it discloses it discloses only so far as is 
necessary for some practical purpose ; while it every- 
where views man just as in common life man views 
himself and his fellows, recognizing at once, without 
discussion, all those facts connected with our intellec- 
tual and moral constitution, the true theory of which 
has occasioned such endless differences and inquiries 
in the schools. 

If the topics selected by the preacher have often 
been very little calculated to inspire interest in the 



198 SACKED ELOQUENCE: 

mass of a common audience, it is equally true that, 
where they are liable to no such objection, the mode 
of treating them has as often been anything but 
popular. The argumentation is often too subtle or 
too comprehensive ; or a too solicitously logical form 
is given to its expression. Unity of subject, indeed, 
there ought to be, and must be ; that is, where the 
discourse is a "sermon," and not an " exposition." 
But it is one thing to exhibit that one subject by 
rapidly and powerfully touching those points which 
the common mind can seize and appreciate, and quite 
another to exhibit it after the manner of Euclid or 
Dr. Clarke. Unity of subject is a characteristic of 
Demosthenes ; but continuous or subtle ratiocination 
never is. He reasons, indeed, perpetually, for reason- 
ing, as already said, is the staple of all effective elo- 
quence ; but never was a truer criticism than that of 
Lord Brougham — " that his reasonings are not of the 
nature of continuous demonstration, and by no means 
resemble a chain of mathematical or metaphysical 
arguments." The following observations are well 
worthy the attention of every speaker : " If by this 
[the assertion that Demosthenes is chiefly character- 
ized by reasoning] is only meant that he never 
wanders from the subject, that each remark tells 
upon the matter in hand, that all his illustrations are 
brought to bear upon the point, and that he.is never 
found making any step in any direction which does 
not advance his main object, and lead toward the 
conclusion to which he is striving to bring his 
hearers, the observation is perfectly just ; for this is 
a distinguishing feature in the character of his elo- 
quence. It is not, indeed, his grand excellence, be- 
cause everything depends upon the manner in which 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 199 

he pursues this course, the course itself being one 
quite as open to the humblest mediocrity as to the 
highest genius. But if it is meant to be said that 
those Attic orators, and especially their great chief, 
made speeches in which long chains of elaborated 
reasoning are to be found, nothing can be less like 
the truth. A variety of topics are handled in suc- 
cession, all calculated to strike the audience." 

We admit, however, that it is impossible to lay 
down any universal rule on this point. Different 
men will treat their subjects with more or less of 
logical severity, according to the structure of their 
own understandings ; and, what is more, will form to 
themselves audiences who will appreciate their 
methods. A general caution against the extremes 
adverted to is all that can be given. But in order 
more effectually to guard against the faults in ques- 
tion, we are inclined to believe that it would be well 
if the ancient system of " Homilies," or expositions 
of considerable passages, were more frequently re- 
sorted to. If well executed, especially when the 
subjects are historical, we are disposed to think they 
would both be more fruitful of instruction, and secure, 
by variety of topics, a stronger hold upon the atten - 
tion of a common audience. We are aware, indeed, 
that to present such subjects judiciously, to make the 
transitions easy and natural, and to secure something 
like unity of plan, notwithstanding the great variety 
of the materials, would require quite as much labor 
as the construction of a sermon on some single topic, 
probably more. And for this very reason we do not 
think it would be at all fair to judge of the effects 
of such expositions by what commonly pass under 
that name, in which a large portion of text is often 



200 sacked eloquence: 

taken in order to seme trouble ; the preacher erro- 
neously supposing that, where he has so much to talk 
about he cannot fail to have enough to say, and that 
he may therefore dispense wi.th a diligent prepara- 
tion. He forgets that, if the field be very wide, there 
may be the greater danger, unless he take due care 
of losing himself in it. We have heard of a preacher 
of this stamp, who alleged, as a reason for resorting 
to the expository method, that when he was " perse- 
cuted in one text he could flee unto another." 
Chrysostom, in his very belt moods, admirably ex- 
emplifies the homiletic style here contended for.* 

* Whitefield's sermons very often consist of little more than a 
familiar and lively exposition of a parable, or some short portion of 
narrative ; and to this we have no doubt they owed no slight degree 
of their popularity. The sermons of Whitefield have come down to 
us in a very imperfect form. They are, for the most part, mere notes 
of what he said. It has often been remarked that his sermons are 
strangely destitute of vigorous or original thought. Though it is cer- 
tain they have greatly suffered from the mutilated form in which they 
have reached us, we must confess it does not appear to us that the 
sermons are very deficient in those qualities of thought or expression 
which we have represented as so essential to popular eloquence. It 
is true they often want method and arrangement, are disfigured by 
repetitions, extravagances, and frequent and gross violations of taste. 
These are to be attributed partly to the cause above specified, that is, 
the imperfect manner in which his sermons have been preserved, 
partly to the character of his own mind, and partly to the age. If, 
indeed, any one look for profound speculation, or continuous and 
subtle reasoning in these sermons, he will be disappointed ; but so far 
from wondering on that account that they could have produced such 
an effect, he will feel, if he know anything of the philosophy of popular 
eloquence, that they could not have produced such an effect if they 
had been characterized by these qualities. It is certain they could not 
have been destitute of the principal qualities, whether of thought or of 
style, which constitute popular eloquence; and we think that even 
now, amid great deformities, those qualities may be not obscurely 
traced in them. Preaching of which the fastidious Hume said, that 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 201 

As we have said that we wish preach ere would let 
the Scriptures determine for them to what classes of 
subjects they should limit themselves, so we wish 
that they would imitate the same book in their gen- 
eral mode of treating the topics it supplies. There, 
assuredly, as Lord Brougham says of Demosthenes, 
the reasonings are not " chains of continuous ratio- 
cination." The book is constructed with far too pro- 
found a knowledge of human nature for that. To 
use the expressive language already quoted, "a 
variety of topics are handled in succession, all calcu- 
lated to strike the common mind." This is the very 
characteristic of the discourses of our Lord ; and in 
this, as well as in all other respects, they are worthy 
of the profound study of the Christian preacher. A 
few philosophers would, no doubt, prefer a very dif- 
ferent method, and have often very unphilosophically 
complained of Scripture because its method is not 
their method. But we are not speaking of what 
philosophers would best like, but what is most calcu- 
lated to impress the common mind. 

We shall now proceed to offer a few observations 
on those properties of style which peculiarly belong 
to the most effective eloquence. It was remarked 
that it is characterized by that brief, rapid, familiar, 
and natural manner which a mind in earnest ever 
assumes. It is best illustrated by the style of a man 
engaged in conversation on some serious subject — 
intent, for example, on convincing his neighbor of 
some important truth, or persuading him to some 

it was "worth going twenty miles to hear it," which interested the 
infidel Bolingbroke, and warmed even the cool and cautious Franklin 
for once into enthusiasm, must have possessed great merit, indepen- 
dently of the charms of voice, gesture, and manner. 



202 SACRED eloquence: 

course of conduct. The public speaker will often 
manifest, it is true, greater dignity or vehemence, 
(the natural result of speaking on a more important 
theme, and to a larger audience,) but there will be 
the same general characteristics still ; the same collo- 
quial, but never vulgar diction; the same homely 
illustrations ; the same brevity of expression ; in a 
word, all those peculiarities which mark a man ab- 
sorbed in his subject, and simply anxious to give the 
most forcible expression to his thoughts and feelings. 
It is not very easy to give an analysis of this peculiar 
style by an enumeration of its qualities ; but it is 
instantly recognized wherever it is found, whether 
addressed to the eye or to the ear.* 

The chief characteristics of this peculiar style are 
abhorrence of the ornate and the glittering, of the 
pompous and the florid ; jealousy of epithets, a highly 
idiomatic and homely diction, a love of brevity and 
condensation, a freedom from stateliness and formal- 
ity ; rapid changes of construction, frequent recur- 
rence to the interrogative — not to mention numberless 
other indications of vivacity and animation, marked 
in speech by the most rapid and varied changes of 
voice and gesture. Of all its characteristics, the 
most striking and the most universal is the moderate 
use of the imagination. ISTow as lively emotion 
always stimulates the imagination, it may at first 
sight appear paradoxical that this should be a char- 
acteristic at all. But a little reflection will explain 
this ; for every one must recollect that if a speaker is 

* No writer on rhetoric (if we except Aristotle) has been so uni- 
formly alive to the peculiarities of this style, or has so happily illus- 
trated them, as Dr. Whately. It must also be admitted that his own 
writings furnish many admirable exemplifications of his own maxims. 
It is well when precept is enforced by exg 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 203 

in earnest lie never employs his imagination as the 
poet does, merely to delight us, nor indeed to delight 
us at all, except as appropriate imagery, though used 
for another object, necessarily imparts pleasure. For 
this reason illustrations are selected always with ref- 
erence to their force rather than their beauty, and 
are very generally marked more by their homely 
propriety than by their grace and elegance. For the 
same reason, wherever it is possible, they are thrown 
into the brief form of a metaphor ; and here Aristotle, 
with his usual sagacity, observes that the metaphor 
is the only trope in which the orator may freely 
indulge. Everything marks the man intent upon 
serious business, whose sole anxiety is to convey his 
meaning with as much precision and energy as possi- 
ble to the minds of his auditors. But with the poet, 
whose very object is to delight us, gr even with the 
prose- writer, in those species of prose which have the 
same object, the case is widely different. He may 
employ two or more images, if they are but appro- 
priate and elegant, where the orator would employ 
but one, and that perhaps the simplest and homeliest ; 
he may throw in an epithet merely to suggest some 
picturesque circumstance, or to give greater minute- 
ness and vivacity to description ; he may sometimes 
indulge in a more flowing and graceful expression 
than the orator would venture upon ; that is, when- 
ever harmony will better answer his object than 
energy. What does it matter to him who is walking 
for walking's sake how long he lingers amid the 
beautiful, or how often he pauses to drink in at leisure 
the melody and the fragrance of nature? But the 
man who is pressing on to his journey's end cannot 
afford time for such luxurious loitering. The utmost 



204 SACRED ELOQUENCE: 

he can do is to snatch here and there a homely 
floweret from the dusty hedge-row, and eagerly pur- 
sue his way. So delicate is the perception attained 
by a highly cultivated taste, of the proprieties of all 
grave and earnest composition, that it not only feels 
at enmity with the meretricious or viciously ornate, 
but immediately perceives that the greatest beauties 
of certain species of prose composition would become 
little better than downright bombast if transplanted 
into any composition the object of which was serious. 
We may illustrate this by referring to a passage of 
acknowledged beauty, the description, in the "Anti- 
quary," of the sunset preceding the storm there so 
grandly delineated : " The sun was now resting his 
huge disc upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded 
the accumulation of towering clouds through which 
he had traveled the livelong day, and which now. 
assembled on all sides, like misfortunes and disasters 
around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, 
however, his dying splendor gave a somber magnifi- 
cence to the massive congregation of vapors, forming 
out of their unsubstantial gloom the show of pyramids 
and towers, some touched with gold, some with pur- 
ple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The 
distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous 
canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back 
the dazzling and level beams of the descending lumin- 
ary and the splendid coloring of the clouds amid 
which he was setting." ~No one in reading this pas- 
sage can help admiring its graphic beauty. The 
numerous epithets, considering the purpose for which 
they are employed — that of detaining the mind upon 
every picturesque circumstance and giving vividness 
and fidelity to the whole picture — appear no more 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 205 

frequent than they ought to be. But suppose some 
naval historian, who has occasion to narrate the 
movements of two hostile fleets, (separated on the 
eve of battle by a storm,) should suddenly pause to 
introduce a similar description ; would not the effect 
be so ridiculous that no one could read to the end of 
the passage without bursting into laughter ? 

It is against such a style that the young preacher, 
especially if he has or thinks he has a brilliant imag- 
ination, is called to be jealously on his guard ; and 
the more so as the very themes on which he is often 
called to speak really require a certain fullness of 
description to bring them with sufficient fidelity and 
vividness before the mind of the hearer. But let him 
beware how he throws in epithets and employs ima- 
ages merely because he thinks them beautiful or 
picturesque. As regards real impression, there is no 
style which has so little practical effect, even when 
there is real genius in it. In general that style is 
characterized by anything but genius. There are 
some examples of it, however, to which this remark 
would not apply ; it certainly would not to some of 
the sermons of Jeremy Taylor. That this style is 
often extravagantly admired is quite true ; nay, even 
the downright florid is not without its admirers ; but 
it is not the less ineffective for all that. This very 
admiration, as it is too often the subtle motive which 
has beguiled the speaker into such a vicious mode of 
treating his subject, so it at once affords a solution of 
the seeming paradox, for it shows that the minds of 
the auditors are fixed rather upon the man than 
upon the subject, less upon the truths inculcated than 
upon the genius which has embellished them. The 
speaker has been ambitious to attract the eye to 



^05 SACRED ELOQUENCE: 

himself and his doings, and it must be admitted that 
he too often succeeds; but it is at the expense of 
what is his avowed, and ought to be his real object. 
If we cannot endure this style in the public speaker, 
even where there is intrinsic beauty in it, simply 
because we do not think it natural that a man in 
earnest should indulge in all this wanton dalliance 
with imagination, how much more repulsive is that 
far more frequent style which is but a mockery of it, 
in which there is a constant effort to be fine ; where 
there is not only excess of ornament, but all of a bad 
kind ! The former style may be natural to the man, 
as in the case of Jeremy Taylor, however unnatural 
in relation to the subject and the occasion ; the latter 
is alike unnatural in relation to both. 

As the severe style for which we contend is best 
illustrated by examples, we shall mention two or 
three of those who have strikingly exemplified it. 
And as we are speaking simply of style, the authors 
to whom we shall refer are selected without relation 
to the systems of doctrine which they preached, and 
without implying either approbation or censure in 
that point of view. If the whole of those who have 
illustrated the principles here expounded were given, 
the catalogue would not be very long. It is true that 
this style is more frequently cultivated than it was ; 
and if it were not invidious to refer to living preach- 
ers, we might mention not a few, both in the Estab- 
lishment and out of it, who have attained it in a very 
high degree ; some few in whom it is found nearly in 
perfection. But if we search the printed literature 
of the pulpit, it is not one sermon in a thousand that 
possesses any traces of it. The style is often that of 
stately or elegant disquisition, often of loose and florid 



THE BKITISH PULPIT. 207 

declamation, but rarely indeed do we recognize the 
qualities of what Aristotle has happily and aptly 
called the " agonistical " or "wrestling" style; that 
style by which a speaker earnestly strives to make a 
present audience see and feel what he wishes them to 
see and feel. A large portion of our sermons differ 
not at all in style from that of a theological treatise or a 
philosophical essay ; and they may be read by the indi- 
vidual in the closet without the slightest suspicion, 
were it not for the assurance on the title-page, that 
they were discourses delivered to a public audience. 
"We would fain believe that the printed sermons of 
many of our preachers have in this respect done 
injustice to their ordinary discourses, and that they 
have been greatly altered previous to publication. 
In one case, and that a striking one, we know that 
this belief is well founded. We allude to perhaps 
the greatest of modern English preachers, the late 
Robert Hall. The few discourses which he so elab- 
orately prepared for the press are full of exquisite 
thoughts, expressed in most exquisite language ; but 
the style is almost everywhere that of disquisition, 
and in no sensible degree different from what he has 
adopted in his "Apology for the Freedom of the 
Press," or his work on "Terms of Communion." 
Now it is well known that his ordinary discourses 
were distinguished by a much higher degree of those 
qualities of style for which we have been so earnestly 
contending ; and there can be little difficulty in 
affirming that, in this one point of view, many of the 
sermons which were imperfectly taken down in short- 
hand from his own lips, are superior to the most 
polished of those compositions which he slowly elab- 
orated for the press. 



208 SACRED eloquence: 

But though it is difficult to point out many speci- 
mens of the style in question, such specimens are to 
be found. Of all the English preachers, probably 
those who have been most strongly marked by the 
peculiarities of the true genius for public speaking, are 
Latimer, South, and Baxter; and, notwithstanding 
some defects, and those not inconsiderable, they are 
also probably the preachers in whom specimens of 
the style we are speaking of will be found the most 
frequent and perfect. 

The first of these certainly possessed talents for the 
most effective eloquence in a high degree. Indeed, 
it may be said of many of the preachers of the Ref- 
ormation, that, though their uncouthness, quaintness, 
ridiculous or trivial allusions, wearisome tautologies 
and digressions, incessant violations of taste and dis- 
regard of method, render it difficult to read them, 
they are in many important points very superior to 
the more erudite and profound preachers of the next 
century. The subjects they selected were such as 
more generally interested the common mind. These 
subjects are briefly touched and rapidly varied. 
Though the structure of the sentence is often most 
uncouth, (as might be expected from the state of the 
language,) the diction is more idiomatic and purely 
English ; while the general manner is decidedly more 
that of downright earnestness, more direct and pun- 
gent. This effect is in a great measure to be attrib- 
uted to the circumstances in which they were placed. 
In that great controversy to which they consecrated 
their lives, they appealed to the people, and were 
naturally led both to adapt their subjects to the pop- 
ular mind, and to express themselves in the pop- 
ular language. The preachers of the next century 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 209 

were men who lived in seclusion, far from common 
life, buried among books, and incessantly reading 
and often writing in a foreign tongue. To all this it 
is owing that their subjects and their style are too 
often as little adapted to produce popular impression 
as those of Thomas Aquinas himself. 

Of all the English preachers, South seems to us to 
furnish, in point of style, the truest specimens of the 
most effective species of pulpit eloquence. We are 
speaking, it must be remembered, simply of his style ; 
we offer no opinion on the degree of truth $r error 
in the system of doctrines he embraced, and for his 
unchristian bitterness and often unseemly wit would 
be the last to offer any apology. But his robust in- 
tellect, his shrewd common sense, his vehement feel- 
ings, and a fancy always more distinguished by force 
than by elegance, admirably qualified him for a 
powerful public speaker. His style is accordingly 
marked by all the characteristics which might natu- 
rally be expected from the possession of such quali- 
ties. It is everywhere direct, condensed, pungent. 
His sermons are well worthy of frequent and diligent 
perusal by every young preacher. He has himself 
taught, both by precept and example, the chief pe- 
culiarities of that style for which we are pleading in 
a discourse on Luke xxi, 15: " For I will give you a 
mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall 
not be able to gainsay or resist." In one passage of 
this sermon he takes occasion to expose the folly of 
that florid declamation to which his manly intellect 
and taste were so little likely to extend indulgence. In 
doing this he introduces some brief specimens of the 
style which he condemns. Though he mentions no 

names, and though we might be unable to refer the 

14 



210 SACKED ELOQUENCE; 

expressions to any particular author, any one might 
be sure, from the expressions themselves, that he 
intended his admonitions for the special benefit of 
his illustrious cotemporary, Jeremy Taylor. More 
bold than courteous, he has been at no pains to in- 
vent expressions for his purpose, but has actually 
selected them out of Taylor's own writings. There 
is certainly some malice in the passage ; but it is 
itself so impressive an example of the style he is 
recommending, that we cannot refrain from extract- 
ing it :* " ' I speak the words of soberness,' said St. 
Paul, and I preach the Gospel not with the 'enticing 
words of man's wisdom.' This was the way of the 
apostle's discoursing of things sacred. Nothing here 
'of the fringes of the north star;' nothing 'of nature's 
becoming unnatural f nothing of the ' down of angels' 
wings, or the beautiful locks of cherubim;' no 
starched similitudes introduced with a ' Thus have I 
seen a cloud rolling in its airy mansion,' and the like. 
No; these were sublimities above the rise of the 
apostolic spirit. For the apostles, poor mortals, were 
content to take lower steps, and to tell the world in 
plain terms, that he who believed should be saved, 
and that he who believed not should be damned. 
And this was the dialect which pierced the con- 
science, and made the hearers cry out, Men and 
brethren, what shall we do ? It tickled not the ear, 
but sunk into the heart; and when men came 
from such sermons they never commended the 
preacher for his taking voice or gesture; for the 
fineness.of such a simile, or the quaintness of such a 
sentence ; but they spoke like men conquered with 
the overpowering force and evidence of the most 
concerning truths, much in the words of the two 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 211 

disciples going to Emmaus : Did not our hearts hum 
within us while he opened to us the Scriptures ? 

" In a word, the apostles' preaching was therefore 
mighty and successful, because plain, natural, and 
familiar, and by no means above the capacity of their 
hearers; nothing being more preposterous than for 
those who were professedly aiming at men's hearts to 
miss the mark by shooting over their heads."* 

We are tempted to give another short extract from 
this great preacher; we might select some which 
would still better illustrate our present subject, but 
they would be too long. The following is from his 
sermon entitled "Good Inclinations no Excuse for 
Bad Actions :" " The third instance, in which men 
use to plead the will instead of the deed, shall be on 
duties of cost and expense. Let a business of expens- 
ive charity be proposed ; and then, as I showed be- 
fore that in matters of labor the lazy person could 
find no hands wherewith to work, so neither in this 
case can the religious miser find any hand wherewith 
to give. It is wonderful to consider how a command 
or call to be liberal, either upon a civil or religious 
account, all of a sudden impoverishes the rich, breaks 
the merchant, shuts up every private man's ex- 
chequer, and makes those men in a minute have 
nothing at all to give, 4 who, at the very same in- 
stant, want nothing to spend. So that instead of 
relieving the poor, such a command strangely in- 
creases their number, and transforms rich men into 
beggars presently. For, let the danger of their prince 
and country knock at their purses, and call upon 
them to contribute against a public enemy or calam- 
ity, then immediately they have nothing, and their 
♦South's "Sermons," voL iv, pp. 152, 153. 



212 SACRED eloquence: 

riches (as Solomon expresses it) never fail to make 
themselves wings and to fly away."* 

Of the preachers of the seventeenth century, Bax- 
ter possessed as largely as any those endowments 
which are essential to the best kind of popular elo- 
quence. He presents the same combination of 
vigorous intellect and vehement feeling which dis- 
tinguished South ; but he conjoined with these a de- 
votion far more pure and ethereal, and a benevolence 
most ardent and sincere. It is a pity that the slovenly 
manner in which he threw oif his works, and which 
was too commonly the fault of the age in which he 
lived, has deformed so large a portion of them by 
repetitions and redundances. Continuous excellence 
is not to be looked for, indeed, in any of the writers 
of that period. There are single passages of great 
power occurring here and there, but imbedded in a 
mass of deformities — gems of marvelous value and 
splendor incrusted in their native earth. Numerous 
as Baxter's defects in point of style are, he often pre- 
sents us with passages which are genuine examples 
of the most effective pulpit eloquence, and, if our 
space would permit, we should be glad to insert some 
of them. Baxter was almost equally distinguished 
by those talents which go to form a great public 
speaker, (hence his constant desire to make a direct 
and practical use of all his knowledge,) and by that 
excursiveness and subtilty of intellect which impels 
to a thorough investigation of every subject, however 
worthless. It is not a little ludicrous sometimes to 
see these two propensities of his intellect struggling 
for the mastery. At one time he forms a magnani- 
mous resolution to forego speculations which are 
*South's " Sermons," vol. i, pp. 278, 279. 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 213 

curiously useless, and the next is found deep in the 
discussion of therm Thus, in his "Dying Thoughts," 
after telling us of the futility of the greater part of 
those questions which relate to the modes of existence 
in a future world, he proceeds very deliberately to 
expend about threescore pages in the examination of 
some of them ! 

Even in Jeremy Taylor, the exuberance of whose 
imagination too often betrayed him into puerilities 
and extravagances which are utterly inconsistent 
with true eloquence, and whose cumbrous erudition 
perpetually suggested allusions and phraseology 
equally inconsistent with it, passages which in a con- 
siderable degree illustrate the style in question are 
not seldom to be found. Take the following from his 
sermon entitled, " Christ's Advent to Judgment:" 
"And because very many sins are sins of society and 
confederation, it is a hard and a weighty considera- 
tion what shall become of any one of us who have 
tempted our brother or sister to sin and death; for 
though God hath spared our life, and they are dead, 
and their debt-books are sealed up till the day of 
account, yet the mischief of our sin has gone before 
us, and it is like a murder, but more execrable ; the 
soul is dead in trespasses and sins, and sealed up to 
an eternal sorrow; and thou shalt see at doomsday 
what damnable uncharitableness thou hast done. 
That soul that cries to those rocks to cover her, if it 
had not been for thy perpetual temptations, might 
have followed the Lamb in a white robe ; and that 
poor man that is clothed with shame and flames of 
lire, would have shined in glory, but that thou didst 
force him to be partner of thy baseness. And who 
shall pay for this loss ? a soul is lost by thy means ; 



214 SACKED eloquence: 

thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord's 
bitter passion by thy impurities; aqd what shall 
happen to thee by whom thy brother dies eternally?" 

Of recent writers there is none with whom we are 
acquainted who, in point of diction, so well deserves 
to be a model as the late Augustus William Hare, 
to whom reference has been already made. We by 
no means assert that (as was the case with Latimer, 
South, or Baxter) the general structure of his intel- 
lect was that which plainly predestines a man to be 
a great public speaker. Of many of the qualifica- 
tions of one he was certainly possessed; and it is 
equally certain that his early death, and the humble 
sphere to which his talents were restricted, render it 
impossible to say what he might have become. He 
possessed in an eminent degree the art of making 
difficult things plain ; of setting obvious truths in 
novel lights ; of illustrating them by familiar images ; 
and of expressing them in a style habitually ani- 
mated, and now and then singularly vivacious. His 
sermons to a " Country Congregation" will probably 
disappoint, by their very simplicity, the highly culti- 
vated and intelligent, for whom, indeed, they were 
never intended ; although we cannot conceal our 
opinion that the extreme simplicity of the language 
would often deceive even such readers as to the value 
and importance of the thoughts it expresses. But for 
an illiterate audience, an audience of rustics, they 
appear to us, in point of diction, perfect models of 
what discourses ought to be. 

Their author was a man of powerful intellect, and 
of the most varied accomplishments, and affords a 
striking example of the success with which high en- 
dowments may be made subservient to a very humble 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 215 

object whenever a man is honestly bent upon so em- 
ploying them. His great knowledge, instead of being 
employed for ostentation's sake, only taught him 
more precisely what was to be done, and how he 
ought to set about it. To the most extensive ac- 
quaintance with ancient and modern literature, he 
added no inconsiderable knowledge of Anglo-Saxon, 
and consequently possessed (what no public speaker 
should be without) an acquaintance with the capa- 
bilities and resources of his mother tongue, with the 
vocabulary and idioms of the people. When he left 
Cambridge to undertake the charge of a congregation 
in a remote rural district, he resolved so to express 
himself that all should understand him; and his 
eminent success shows what may be done by one who 
forms a definite notion of the style he ought to adopt, 
and deliberately bends his best energies to attain it. 
The above-mentioned sermons to a " Country Congre- 
gation," we consider, a greater triumph of his genius 
than all the splendid acquisitions he had made ; and 
if Dr. Johnson's sentiment be true, that a " volun- 
tary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps 
the hardest lesson that humility can teach," the tri- 
umph of his humility was still greater than that of 
his genius. 

We are well aware of the many difficulties which 
beset the man who honestly resolves to speak only in 
the style we have recommended ; difficulties some- 
times arising from the intellectual pursuits to which 
he has been necessarily addicted ; sometimes from the 
peculiarity of his own mental character. Nursed in 
the lap of learning, and familiar with the language 
of science and literature; necessitated in the very 
course of those preparatory studies which form an 



216 SACRED ELOQUENCE: 

essential part of his professional education, to read 
much in foreign tongues, and to prosecute profound 
or abstruse inquiries, he will be apt, insensibly, to 
select subjects, or adopt a style utterly inconsistent 
with pulpit eloquence. He may still more frequently 
be betrayed into such conduct by affectation and 
vanity. The very peculiarities of his own mental 
constitution may expose him more fatally to the 
danger, and require continual efforts to counteract 
them. If he be a philosopher he will be tempted to 
indulge too much in abstruse speculation, or to treat 
those subjects on which he may rightfully expatiate 
in a philosophic manner — in language too abstract 
and remote from common life. If he have a brilliant 
imagination he will often be tempted to employ it 
inopportunely or to excess, and will find it hard to 
restrain it within the moderate limits in which alone 
it can be useful. In order to counteract the acciden- 
tal evils arising from the necessary prosecution of 
various branches of study, which, in relation to pub- 
lic speaking, may injuriously affect the habits of 
thought or of expression, it is proper that every one 
who is destined for such engagements should cultivate 
acquaintance with the most idiomatic writers, under- 
stand the genius and resources of his own language, 
the modes of thought and expression prevalent among 
the common people, and, above all, be diligent in the 
perusal of the best models of that severe and manly 
eloquence of which we have said so much. The 
success of Mr. Hare may serve to show how much 
may be done by honesty and diligence. Nor can it 
fail to encourage the young preacher to know that if 
he gets but a clear idea of the task which he has to per- 
form, and honestly resolves to perform it, thereisnotone 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 217 

of those things which we have mentioned as possible im- 
pediments that may not be made to facilitate his object. 
All that is requisite is a determination, that, as he 
has a practical object in view, everything shall be 
strictly subordinated to it. Philosophy, for example, 
may be made useful ; but it must be principally by 
teaching him to understand the mechanism and 
movements of that mind on which he is to operate. 
The audience must not perceive or suspect that the 
speaker is following the suggestions of any such in- 
visible guide ; or, if it be employed directly at all, it 
still must be unsuspected by the common people to 
be philosophy : it must be employed merely to insure 
greater accuracy and comprehensiveness in the views 
propounded ; and to determine the circumspect limits 
within which every subject must be treated ; that is, 
so far, and so far only, as it may be made conducive to 
a practical end. In a word, it must be philosophy 
without the forms of it ; philosophy in its working dress ; 
philosophy that has learned one of its hardest lessons, 
that it is often the truest philosophy not to appear such. 
In like manner, the speaker may have a knowledge 
of logic ; but it must be seen only in the greater 
perspicuity of his statements, and the greater close- 
ness of his reasoning. He must never trouble the 
people with the mysteries of mood and figure, or be- 
wilder them with a single unintelligible technicality. 
He may possess a knowledge of rhetoric ; but he is 
not to confound his audience with the distinctions of 
trope and metaphor, with the uses of synecdoches 
or metonymies, with those principles of the human 
mind which give them energy, or the rules by which, 
at the very time he is speaking, he is regulating his 
own taste in the employment of them. Here is a 



218 SACRED eloquence: 

" hard lesson ! who can hear it ?" To be employing 
profound and extensive knowledge without suffering 
those you address to know any thing of the matter ! 
To be contented to produce results which seem cheap 
and common, without once lifting the curtain to be- 
wilder and dazzle the multitude with a sight of the 
imposing and complicated machinery which is re- 
volving behind it ! 

It is happily unnecessary to caution the modern 
preacher against many of the abuses which pervade 
our older pulpit literature, especially that of the 
seventeenth century; a period, notwithstanding, in 
which many of our most eminent preachers flourished. 
We allude more particularly to the abuse of learning. 
Most of the sermons of that age are full of quotations, 
absolutely unintelligible to the common people. 
Numberless passages of Jeremy Taylor^ in particular, 
are little better than a curious tessellation of En- 
glish, Greek, and Latin. The people, however strange 
the fact may appear, came at last not merely to like 
these displays, but to be sometimes discontented if 
they did not hear a great deal which they could not 
understand ! It is recorded of the profoundly learned 
Pococke, that when he successfully studied to divest 
his pulpit style of the traces of erudition, and, with 
a magnanimity and good sense very unusual in that 
age, made it a point to say nothing but what the peo- 
ple could understand, his congregation absolutely 
despised his simplicity, and said that " Master Po- 
cocke, though a very good man, was no Labi/ner" 
And South tells us, "that the grossest, the most 
ignorant and illiterate country people, were of all 
men the fondest of high-flown metaphors and allego- 
ries, attended and set off with scraps of Greek and 

% 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 219 

Latin, though not able even to read so much of the 
latter as might save their necks upon occasion." 

Equally unnecessary is it to caution the preacher 
against those complicated divisions and subdivisions 
into which our forefathers thought proper to chop up 
their discourses, to the entire frustration of the very 
object they had in view, and the utter discomfiture 
of the most retentive memory. In one discourse of 
Bishop Hall's, we have counted no less than eighty 
heads, principal and subordinate ; in one of Baxter's, 
not less than one hundred and twenty, besides a for- 
midable array of " improvements." But the most 
amusing examples of this abuse are those recorded 
in Robinson's notes to Claude's Essay " On the Com- 
position of a Sermon :" " But allowing the necessity 
of a natural and easy division, it does by no means 
follow that these are to multiply into whole armies. 
A hundred years ago most sermons had thirty, forty, 
fifty, or sixty particulars. There is a sermon of Mr. 
Lye's on 1 Cor. vi, IT, the terms of which, says he, 
I shall endeavor, by God's assistance, clearly to ex- 
plain. This he does in thirty particulars, for the fix- 
ing of it on a right basis, and then adds fifty-six more 
to explain the subject, in all eighty-six. And what 
makes it the more astonishing is his introduction to 
all these, which is this : Having thus beaten up and 
leveled our way to the text, I shall not stand to shred 
the words into any unnecessary parts, but shall extract 
out of them such an observation as I conceive strikes 
a full eighth to the mind of the Spirit of God. 

" If Mr. Lye is too prolific, what shall we say to 
Mr. Drake, whose sermon has (if I reckon rightly) 
above a hundred and seventy parts, besides queries 
and solutions; and yet the good man says he passed 



220 SACKED ELOQUENCE: 

sundry useful points, pitching only on that which 
comprehended the marrow and substance." 

Equally superfluous would it be to caution the 
modern preacher against the quaintnesses, the quirks 
and quibbles, the fantastic imagery, the alliterations, 
and other curious devices of composition in which 
many of our older writers so much delighted. In 
truth, the tendency is all the other way. In the 
laudable effort to avoid the vulgar, there is not un- 
frequently a danger of sinking down into tame pro- 
priety. Our old writers, in their free and reckless 
resort to every mode of stimulating attention, were 
often, it is true, betrayed into gross violations of taste ; 
but the very same audacity of genius also often pro- 
duced great felicities, both of imagery and diction. 
The -too frequent characteristic of modern discourses 
is what the Germans would denominate " Wasserig- 
keit," " waterishness :" there is little to strike either 
the one way or the other ; all is blameless common- 
place, accurate insipidity. 

We now proceed, conformably with the intention 
mentioned at the commencement of this essay, to 
offer a few remarks on what we conceive to be the 
two chief causes of the mediocrity of the generality 
of sermons. One of them in our opinion is, that too 
little time is given to the preparation of public dis- 
courses. Far be it from us to involve in indiscrimi- 
nate censure the thousands of preachers whom we 
have never heard, or to pronounce absolutely on the 
indolence or the industry even of those to whom we 
hsv* 'istened. We only think that the failing in 
a is not a very partial one, from the internal 
b supplied by the sermons of no inconsiderable 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 221 

number of the different preachers whom we have 
heard. "We are also willing to admit, that the duties 
of the pulpit are not the only duties which claim the 
attention of the Christian minister ; and that his other 
engagements, in an age like this, are neither few nor 
small. But we must also contend, that as his princi- 
pal office is that of public instructor, the duties of 
that office must ever be his chief business ; and that, 
to whatever extent he may undertake other engage- 
ments, he should sacredly reserve sufficient time for 
the due discharge of his proper functions. The con- 
struction of a discourse which shall be adapted in 
matter, arrangement, and style, to produce a strong 
impression upon a popular audience, seems a task 
which requires much more time and labor than, as 
we conceive, are generally bestowed upon it. But 
we are convinced that this task, difficult as it is, 
might be performed much better than it generally is. 
We are well aware, of course, that there must always 
be an immense interval between the productions of a 
man of genius and those of a man who has no genius 
at all, between those of a fertile intellect and those 
of a barren one ; but there are few men possessed of 
that measure of vigor and elasticity of mind, without 
which they have no business out of the rank of 
handicraftsmen, who could not, with diligence, com- 
pose a discourse which might be generally useful and 
interesting, at least much more so than discourses 
are often found to be. Prolonged study and medita- 
tion are never without their reward. Either some 
new materials are collected, or they strike by a new 
arrangement, or some new truth is elicited, or some 
old truth is exhibited under a new aspect, or illustra- 
ted in a manner which gives it an importance never 



222 SACRED ELOQUENCE: 

felt before, and extends its influence from the under- 
standing to the imagination, and thence to the affec- 
tions. Such sources of interest as these are sure to 
reveal themselves, sooner or later, to the mind that 
honestly and diligently sets itself to seek them with 
the conviction that they are to be had, and that they 
must be obtained.* 

* How much force is imparted to the most familiar and obvious 
truths in the following passages, merely by the novel mode of exhibit- 
ing them? 

" ' Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest.' If an inhabitant of some distant part of the uni- 
verse, some angel who had never visited the earth, had been told that 
there was a world in which such an invitation had been neglected and 
despised, they would surely say : The inhabitants of that world must 
be a very happy people ; there can be few among them that ' labor 
and are heavy laden.' No doubt they must be strangers to poverty, 
sorrow, and misfortune ; the pestilence cannot come nigh their dwell- 
ing, neither does death ever knock at their doors, and of course they 
must be unconnected with sin, and ah the miseries that are its ever- 
lasting attendants." — Wolfe's Remains. 

" Though the arguments which the Christian hath for his faith may 
not be the strongest, yet a tree but weakly rooted often brings forth 
good fruit ; and if it doth, will never be hewn down and cast into the 
fire." — Seeker's Sermons, vol. i, p. 20. 

The following is a passage from Hare's sermon on the text, "And 
forgive us our sins ; for we also forgive every one who is indebted 
to us:" 

"Conceive a revengeful, unforgiving man repeating this prayer, 
which you all, I hope, repeat daily. Conceive a man with a heart full 
of wrath against his neighbor, with a memory which treasures up the 
little wrongs, and insults, and provocations he fancies himself to have 
received from that neighbor. Conceive such a man praying to God 
Most High to forgive him his trespasses as he forgives the man who 
has trespassed against him. What, in the mouth of such a man, do 
these words mean ? They mean — but, that you may more fully under- 
stand their meaning, I will turn them into a prayer, which we will 
call the prayer of the unforgiving man : ' God, I have sinned against 
thee many times from my youth up until now. I have often been for- 
getful of thy goodness ; I have not daily thanked thee for thy mercies ; 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 223 

"Without intending to implicate Christian ministers 
generally in the charge now made, it will not be 
denied that the internal evidence of many a discourse 
justifies us in saying that it is widely applicable. In 
the first place, it can hardly be affirmed that those 
give time enough to their sermons who give none at 
all ; who, if they are ever eloquent, are eloquent at 
other people's expense ; who are contented to be 
wholesale plagiarists, and to shine Sunday after Sun- 
day in borrowed finery, 

"And cheat the eyes 
Of gallery critics with a thousand arts." 

We well know all the arguments by which this com- 
bination of vanity and indolence usually supports itself. 

I have neglected thy service ; I have broken thy laws ; I have done 
many things utterly wrong against thee. All this I know, and besides 
this, doubtless, I have committed many secret sins which, in my blind- 
ness, I have failed to notice. Such is my guiltiness, Lord, in thy 
sight. Deal with me, I beseech thee, even as I deal with my neigh- 
bor. He has not offended me one tenth, one hundredth part as much 
as I have offended thee ; but he has offended me very grievously, and 
I cannot forgive him. Deal with me, I beseech thee, Lord, as I deal 
with him. He has been very ungrateful to me, though not a tenth, 
not a hundredth part as ungrateful as I have been to thee ; yet I can- 
not overlook such base and shameful ingratitude. Deal with me, 1 
beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him. I remember and treasure 
up every little trifle which shows how ill he has behaved to me. Deal 
with me, I beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him. I am determined 
to take the very first opportunity of doing him an ill turn. Deal with 
me, I beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him.' Can anything be 
more shocking and horrible than such a prayer? Is not the very 
sound of it enough to make one's blood run cold ? Tet this is just the 
prayer which the unforgiving man offers up every time he repeats the 
Lord's prayer ; for he prays to God to forgive him in the same manner 
in which he forgives his neighbor. But he does not forgive his neigh- 
bor, so he prays to God not to forgive him. God grant that his prayer 
may not be heard, for he is praying a curse on his own head!" — 
Hare's Sermons, vol. ii, pp. 297-299. 



224 SACRED eloquence: 

The principal is, that a man of little talent can buy 
or borrow a much better sermon than he can make. 
We freely acknowledge it, and should not make so 
great an objection to the practice if the preacher 
would avow the fact. This we think common honesty 
requires ; but if it be felt, as every one must feel, 
that such an avowal would put the speaker to shame, 
or, if he were past that, would make his audience 
ashamed for him, it is a tacit admission of the impro- 
priety of the practice. 

But we think the argument altogether fallacious. 
Supposing the preacher not to be destitute of that 
measure of talent without which he has no business 
to assume the office of a public instructor at all, we 
deny in toto that a borrowed discourse, whatever its 
merit, can be so impressive as one, even though in- 
trinsically inferior, which has been made his own by 
conscientious study. The latter is the fruit of dili- 
gent effort ; prolonged meditation will insure famili- 
arity with the subject, and both together insure, 
what nothing else can, adequate emotion. It will, 
accordingly, be delivered with an earnestness and 
glow of natural feeling of which the reading of a 
borrowed discourse is altogether destitute. The 
treasures of theological literature, whatever is valua- 
ble in other men's thoughts, are freely open to the 
preacher; but he should ever seek to make them his 
own by new combinations, arrangement, and expres- 
sion. The matter he borrows should be made his by 
chemical affinities with his own thoughts, not by mere 
mechanical appropriation. 

As to those discourses which are commonly called 
extemporaneous, we mean extemporaneous with re- 
gard to the expression, for the bulk of the thoughts 



THE BKITISH PULPIT. Tlo 

ought never to be extemporaneous, it is our firm be- 
lief that no inconsiderable portion to which the 
Christian communities of this country are treated are 
hastily huddled up on the evening preceding their 
delivery. But we believe that not a few are quite as 
extemporaneous in relation to the thought, as they 
are in relation to the expression. "When this is the 
case, the fact usually proclaims itself with sufficient 
clearness ; the painful process by which the mind is 
endeavoring to manufacture the material as the dis- 
course proceeds is abundantly visible both in face 
and manner. The frequent hesitation, the curiously 
bewildered look, the endless repetitions of common- 
place, the wire-drawing of obvious truths, all une- 
quivocally proclaim the speaker's unenviable confu- 
sion and embarrassment, his utter bankruptcy of 
intellect. The wonder is, that any man who has felt 
the misery of such an exhibition, or subjected his 
congregation to the pain of witnessing it, should 
ever again allow himself to be found in so painful a 
situation. 

Even of discourses where the thoughts are not 
properly extemporaneous, (and if the subject has been 
duly pondered, the matter properly distributed, and 
the principal illustrations selected, we cannot but 
think this the most effective, as it is certainly the 
most natural mode of preaching,) very few, compara- 
tively speaking, are prepared with the requisite de- 
gree of deliberation and care. Owing to the hasty 
manner in which they are got up, the subjects are rarely 
sufficiently digested; the several parts of the dis- 
course do not present themselves to the mind with 
sufficient distinctness; and, what is as bad, the great 
task of selection is not adequately performed after 

15 



226 sacked eloquence: 

the materials have been got together. Knowing that he 
most have a sufficient mass of matter of some kind 
or other, conscious that there is not much time to 
collect it, and grievously fearing lest he should not 
have enough, the preacher takes everything that 
offers, relevant or irrelevant, simply because it can- 
not be dispensed with. The process too often adopt- 
ed in the manufacture of these extemporaneous dis- 
courses we take to' be this. A text is selected ; 
critics and commentators hastily consulted ; and as 
it is felt that everything must be used, all that is 
collected about the text, whether relevant or not, 
whether calculated to instruct and edify, or quite 
unlikely to do either the one or the other, goes into 
the notes, simply because it cannot be spared. It is 
owing to this that we have sometimes heard preach- 
ers occupy a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes, 
(exhausting the patience and dissipating the atten- 
tion of their flocks,) in disposing of some whimsical, 
far-fetched, and palpably untrue interpretation of the 
text, benevolently assuring them, at the same time, 
that such interpretations are utterly worthless, never 
dreamt of except by the solitary author who originated 
them, and perfectly inconsistent with common sense ! 
There are not a few fallacies by which some 
preachers impose upon themselves the belief that 
less preparation is necessary than is really indispensa- 
ble. They think that the topics on which they have 
to insist are so familiar and obvious that it is easy to 
discourse about them to any extent. It is clear that 
this argument ought to tell just the other way ; it is 
precisely because the topics on which the Christian 
minister has to expatiate are so familiar and obvious 
that the more diligence is requisite to set them in 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 22 t 

new lights ; to devise new modes of illustration, and 
to secure the requisite variety by changing the form 
where we cannot change the substance. In this 
way only can exhausted attention be stimulated and 
renewed; but in this way it can. As the instances 
recently adduced will show, even the most obvious 
and threadbare truths may be made striking and 
forcible by a new setting. 

Sometimes men will tell us that they prefer a natu- 
ral and artless eloquence, and that very diligent 
preparation is inconsistent with such qualities. We 
verily believe that this fallacy, though it lurks 
under an almost transparent ambiguity, is of most 
prejudicial consequence. Nature and art, so far 
from being always opposed, are often the very same 
thing. Thus, to adduce a familiar example, and 
closely related to the present subject, it is natural for 
a man who feels that he has not given adequate ex- 
pression to a thought, though he may have used the 
first words suggested, to attempt it again and again. 
He, each time, approximates nearer to the mark, and 
at length desists, satisfied either that he has done 
what he wishes, or that he cannot perfectly do it, as 
the case may be. A writer, with this end, is con- 
tinually transposing clauses, reconstructing sentences, 
striking out one word and putting in another. All 
this may be said to be art, or the deliberate applica- 
tion of means to ends; but is it art inconsistent with 
nature ? It is just such art as this that we ask of the 
preacher, and no other ; simply that he shall take 
diligent heed to do what he has to do as well as he 
can. Let him depend upon it that no such art as 
this will ever make him appear the less natural. 

A similar fallacy lurks' under the unmeaning 



228 SACRED ELOQUENCE: 

praises which are often bestowed upon a simple style 
of address. We love a true simplicity as much as 
any of its eulogists can do; but we should probably dif- 
fer about the meaning of the word. "While some 
men talk as if to speak naturally were to speak like 
a natural, others talk as if to speak with simplicity 
meant to speak like a simpleton. True simplicity 
does not consist in what is trite, bald, or common- 
place. So far as regards the thought it means, not 
what is already obvious to every body, but what, 
though not obvious, is immediately recognized, as 
soon as propounded, to be true and striking. As it 
regards the expression it means, that thoughts worth 
hearing are expressed in language that every one can 
understand. In the first point of view it is opposed 
to what is abstruse; in the second to what is ob- 
scure. It is not what some men take it to mean, 
threadbare, commonplace, expressed in insipid lan- 
guage. It can be owing only to a fallacy of this 
kind that we so often hear discourses, consisting of 
little else than meager truisms, expanded and diluted 
till every mortal ear aches that listens. We have 
heard preachers commence with the tritest of truths, 
a all men are mortal," and proceed to illustrate it 
with as much prolixity as though they were announc- 
ing it as a new proposition to a company of immor- 
tals in some distant planet, skeptical as to the reality 
of a fact so portentous, and so unauthenticated by 
their own experience. 

True simplicity is the last and most excellent grace 
which can belong to a speaker, and is certainly not 
to be attained without much effort. Those who have 
attentively read the present article will not suspect 
us of demanding more deliberate preparation on the" 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 229 

part of the preacher, that he may offer what is pro- 
found, recondite, or abstruse ; but that he may say only 
what he ought to say, and that what he does say may 
be better said. When the topics are such only as 
ought to be insisted on, and the language such as is 
readily understood, the preacher may depend upon 
it that no pains he may take will be lost; that his 
audience, however homely, will be sure to appreciate 
them, and that the better a discourse is the better 
they will like it. 

We have stated as the other great cause of the 
failure of preachers, that they are not sufficiently 
instructed in the principles of pulpit eloquence. We 
are far from contending that a systematic exposition 
of the laws in conformity with which all effective 
discourses to the people must be constructed, should 
be made a part of general education, or that it ought 
to be imparted even to him who is destined to be a 
public speaker, till his general training, and that a 
very ample one, is far advanced. But that such 
knowledge shall be acquired by every one designed 
for such an office, and that all universities and col- 
leges should furnish the means of communicating it, 
we have no manner of doubt. It is sometimes said, 
indeed, that all systematic instruction of this sort 
tends to spoil nature, prevent simplicity, and encour- 
age vanity ; in short, that it is sure to produce one or 
other of the forms of spurious or artificial eloquence. 
We ask : Does the objector mean any such system 
as approves of such things, or one that condemns 
them? If the former, we know of no such system; 
if the latter, then he must defend the paradox that 
such systems have, somehow or other, a tendency to 
produce the very faults which they expose and 



230 SACRED eloquence: 

denounce, and to prevent the attainment of those 
very excellences which they describe as the only ones 
worth seeking ! ISTow is it possible for any sane 
mind to conceive that the ridicule which Campbell 
and Whately, for example, pour upon such faults, can 
foster in any youth a perverse passion for them? or 
that the severity, simplicity, earnest, businesslike 
style which these writers everywhere enjoin as essen- 
tial to all effective eloquence should provoke any 
man to the imitation of the opposite vices? The 
supposition is an absurdity. So far as such writers 
produce any effect at all, it must be to prevent the 
follies which they so unsparingly condemn. Those 
who attribute vicious eloquence to sound criticism 
have been guilty merely of the common blunder of 
assigning effects to wrong causes ; only it must be 
confessed that in the present case they show singular 
ingenuity in referring them to the only causes which 
could not by possibility produce them. The simple 
truth is that the bent of the young mind is so strong 
toward various forms of this spurious eloquence that 
it resists the most powerful counteraction ; and time 
and experience alone will avail, and not always even 
these, to give precepts their due weight and their 
just practical influence. To charge such effects upon 
such causes is about as wise as it would be to say of 
some spot which had been but partially cultivated, 
and from which the weeds which nature had so 
prodigally sown had not been completely eradicated, 
tk This comes of gardening and artificial culture !" 

Youthful vanity and inexperience alone sufficiently 
account for the greater part of the deviations from 
propriety, simplicity, and common sense now adverted 
to. Those who laud nature in opposition to art are 



. THE BRITISH PULPIT. 231 

too apt to forget that this very vanity forms a part 
of it. It is natural for a youth, whether with or 
without cultivation, to fall into these errors; and 
all experience loudly proclaims that on such a 
point nature alone is no safe guide. Who that has 
arrived at maturity in intellect, taste, and. feeling, 
does not recollect how hard it was in early life to put 
the extinguisher upon a flaunting metaphor or daz- 
zling expression, to reject tinsel, however worthless, 
if it did but glitter, and epithets, however super- 
fluous, if they but sounded grand ? How hard it was 
to forget one's self and to become sincerely intent 
upon the best, simplest, strongest, briefest mode of 
communicating what we deemed important truth to 
the minds of others! Surely then it is not a little 
ridiculous, when so obvious a solution offers itself, to 
charge the faults of young speakers upon the very 
precepts which condemn them. It is sufficient to 
vindicate the utility of such precepts if they tend only 
in some measure to correct the errors they cannot 
entirely suppress, and to abridge the duration of 
follies which it is impossible wholly to prevent. 

But it is further said that, somehow or other, any 
such system of instruction does injury, by laying 
upon the intellect a sort of constraint, and substituting 
a stiff, mechanical movement for the flexibility and 
freedom of nature. 

The reply is, that if the system of instruction be 
too minute, or if the pupil be told to employ it 
mechanically, it may easily be conceived that such 
effects will follow, but not otherwise. We plead for 
no system of minute technical rules ; still less for the 
formal application of any system whatever. But to 
imbue the mind with great general principles, leaving 



232 SACRED ELOQUENCE: i 

them to operate imperceptibly upon the formation of 
habit, and to suggest, without distinct consciousness 
of their presence, the lesson which each occasion 
demands, is a very different thing, and is all we con- 
tend for. One would think, to hear some men talk, 
that it \^as proposed to instruct a youth to adjust 
beforehand the number of sentences of which each 
paragraph should consist, and the lengths into which 
the sentences should be cut ; to determine how many 
should be perfect periods and how many should not ; 
what average allowance of antitheses, interrogatives, 
and notes of admiration shall be given to each page ; 
where he shall stick on a metonymy or a metaphor, 
and how many niches he shall reserve for gilded 
ornaments. Who is pleading for any such nonsense 
as this? All that is contended for is that no public 
speaker should be destitute of a clear perception of 
those principles of man's nature on which conviction 
and persuasion depend, and of those proprieties of 
style which ought to characterize all discourses which 
are designed to effect these objects. General as all 
this knowledge must be, we cannot help thinking 
that it would be most advantageous. One great 
good it would undoubtedly in many cases effect: it 
would prevent men from setting out wrong, or at least 
abridge the amount or duration of their errors. In 
other words, prevent the formation of vicious habits, 
or tend to correct them when formed. Nothing is 
more common than for a speaker to set out with false 
notions as to the style which effective public speaking 
requires, to suppose it something very remote from 
what is simple and natural. Still more are led into 
similar errors by their vanity. The young especially 
are apt to despise the true style for what are its chief 



THE BRITISH PULPIT. 233 

excellences, its simplicity and severity. Let them 
once be taught its great superiority to every other, 
and they will at least be protected from involuntary 
errors, and be less likely to yield to. the seductions of 
vanity. Such a knowledge would also (perhaps the 
most important benefit of all) involve a knowledge 
of the best models, and secure timely appreciation of 
them. 

But it is frequently urged that, after all, the prac- 
tical value of all the great lessons of criticism must 
be learned from experience, and that mere instruction 
can do little. Be it so. is this any reason why that 
little should be withheld ? Besides, is it nothing to 
put a youth in the right way ? to abridge the lessons 
of experience? to facilitate the formation of good 
habits, and to prevent the growth of bad ones? to di- 
minish the probabilities of failure, and to increase those 
of success ? Is there any reason why we should suf- 
fer the young speaker to grope out his way by the 
use of the lead-line alone, when we could give him 
the aid of a chart and compass ; or to find his way to 
truth at last by a series of painful blunders, when any 
part of the trouble or the shame might be spared him ? 
Can any one doubt that a great speaker may be able 
to give a novice in the art many profitable hints, 
which would save him both much time and many 
errors, and make the lessons of experience not only 
a great deal shorter, but vastly less troublesome ? If 
this be so, we cannot see how it should be affirmed 
that instructions founded on an accurate analysis of 
eloquence, and compiled and digested by critics like 
Campbell and Whately, w T ill altogether fail of pro- 
ducing similar benefits. 

Lastly, it is urged that such instructions are of very 



234 SACKED ELOQUENCE. 

little benefit, because, do what we will, we cannot 
make great speakers ; that nature has the exclusive 
patent for the manufacture ; that, like the true poet, 
the true orator is " born, not made," facts which we 
fully admit, but deny to be relevant. The argument 
contains a twofold fallacy. First, it is not true that 
even those to whom nature has imparted this heaven- 
born genius can do themselves justice without assid- 
uous cultivation, or afford to dispense with early in- 
struction. Certain it is, that none of them have ever 
thought it wise to venture upon such a display of in- 
dependence. Secondly, if it were ever so true that 
such men could do without instruction, the cases are 
so few that they would in no wise affect the general 
question. The highest oratorical genius is of the very 
rarest occurrence ; it is as rare as the epic or dramatic, 
if not more so, there being but two or three tolerably 
perfect specimens to be found in the whole* cabinet 
of history. The great question is, how to improve to 
the utmost the talents of those who must be public 
speakers, but who yet have no pretensions to the in- 
spiration of genius ; on whom, in truth, no one ever 
suspects that the mantle either of Demosthenes or of 
Cicero has descended. Nor should it ever be forgot- 
ten, (for it powerfully confirms the correctness of the 
views now insisted upon,) that, though the constitu- 
tion of mind which is necessary for the highest elo- 
quence is very seldom to be met with, there is no 
faculty whatever which admits of such indefinite 
growth and development, or in which perseverance 
and diligence will do so much, as that of public 
speaking. 



THE END. 






BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
200 Mulberry-street, New York. 

Compendium of Methodism. 

A Compendium of Methodism : embracing the History and Pres 
ent Condition of its various Branches in all Countries ; with t 
Defense of its Doctrinal, Governmental, and Prudential Pecu 
liarities. By Be v. James Porter, D.D. Revised edition. 

12mo., pp. 501. 

This work has received universal favor. The facts that our bishops have put 
it in the course of study for local preachers, and that it has been translated into 
the German and Scandinavian languages, commend it to the confidence of all 
Methodists. It« peculiar advantages are, 1. That it gives a connected history o! 
Methodism from the beginning in all countries, and in all its denominations. 

2. That it shows our doctrinal agreements and disagreements with other sects. 

3. That it exhibits the different systems of church government in the world, and 
the relative merits of each. 4. That it explains and defends all our prudential 
means of grace and other peculiarities as no. other book does. It is a whole 
library in one volume, and is a Zaoor-saving as well as a money-saving pro- 
duction. Its importance to preachers and others is indicated by the following 
testimonials : 

It is, in fact, a digest of Methodism. The arrangement and execution of the 
several parts are admirable. The style is a model of perspicuity, ease, and vigor; 
and in point of condensation, the volume is literally crowded with important 
matter. "We have hardly seen as great compactness without confusion, or aD 
equal number of pages from which so few could be eliminated without detriment. 
But what is far more important than the mode of composition is the spirit which 
pervades the work. The author writes with that candid discrimination so essen- 
tial to the proper discussion of the topics which he handles. — Ed. of North. Adv. 

This work is a valuable acquisition to our Church literature. It embodies 
much important information, arranged in a natural and convenient form, and 
affords a good general outline of Methodism. It is a work of much merit. I do 
cheerfully commend it, as a whole, to the favorable consideration of our friends 
and the public generally. — T. Morris, Bishop of M. E. Church. 

I like the book much. It will do good. Our people and friends ought to read 
and study it thoroughly. It furnishes a satisfactory answer to the petty objec- 
tions urged against the Methodists by a set of ecclesiastical croakers with which 
we are everywhere beset. One gentleman, whom I let have a copy, after reading 
it carefully, remarked, "It is the book needed ; I would not take twenty dollars 
for my copy if I could not obtain another." — Rev. Justin Spatjlding. 

I have just finished the reading of this book, and I wish to express my decided 
Approbation of it. It should be a family book, a Sunday-school book, and I would 
udd especially, a text-book for all candidates for the ministry. — J. T. Peck, D.D. 

The work throughout is not a criticism on Methodist usages, but a statement 
and defense of them. As such, we trust it will meet with the wide circulation it 
deserves, both in and out of the Church. — Methodist Quarterly Review. 

We have examined the book, and most cordially recommend our friends, one 
and all, to procure it immediately. No Methodist can study it without profit, 
and gratitude to the great Head of the Church for the wisdom imparted to those 
who have been the instruments employed in constructing the rules and regula- 
tions under which the operations of this most successful branch of the Church 
are conducted. — Editor of the Christian Guardian, Toronto. 

It is precisely the volume needed to instruct our people in the peculiarities of 
our system. The special character of Methodism is here developed in such a 
manner as to show that it is specially excellent, and worthy of special zeal and 
special sacrifices. It is very systematically arranged, and therefore convenient 
for reference on any given point. To the Methodist, especially the " official " 
Methodist, this book is fitted to be a complete manual ; and to all others who 
would understand what Methodism precisely is, as a whole, or in any specific 
respect, we commend Dr. Porters work as an acknowledged authority — 
A.. Stevens, LL.D. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OABLTON & POETEB, 

300 Mulberry-street, New York. 

Elements of Logic. 

Adapted to the Capacity of younger Students, and designed for 
Academies and the Higher Classes of Common Schools. Ke- 
vised edition. By Kev. C. K. Tktte, D.D. 

We are glad to see that this excellent hand-book, is being introduced into many 
schools and seminaries. If onr friends connected with school committees through 
the country wil take a little pains they may introduce it into thousands of schools 
with advantage to all concerned. 

We believe that, with a treatise as simple as Dr. True's, all college students might 
understand logic, and the higher classes of our academies and grammar schools be 
emboldened to study it; while the study of the treatises in ordinary use is now almost 
wholly confined to colleges, and the understanding of them to a small percentage 
of each class. We give the book, therefore, our cordial commendation. It is short 
and simple, not because it is shallow and superficial, but because the author has the 
mastery of his science, knows how it ought to be taught, perceives the utility of its 
study to all persons of intelligence and culture, and has adapted his presentation of it 
to this so desirable end.— North American Review. 

This is a thorough popular treatise on the Elements of Logic, the best undoubt- 
edly in the market for schools and colleges. Those who have not had the advant- 
ages of schools would do well to give it a thorough study. — Eton's Herald. 

Clergyman's Pocket Diary and Visiting Book. 

Arranged by James Poetee, D.D. 

Here we have an admirable memorandum book, the want of which has been felt, 
we venture to say, very generally by our ministerial brethren. It contains the fol 
lowing departments : Funerals attended, sermons preached, alphabetical list of mem- 
bers, alphabetical list of probationers, alphabetical list of friends not members, record 
of baptisms, record of marriages, subscribers for periodicals, cash accounts, general 
accounts, general memorandum, etc. — Canada Christian Advocate. 

Parkerism : 

Three Discourses delivered on the occasion of the Death of 
Theodoee Paeeiee. By W. F. Waeeen, Fales H. Newhall, 
and Gilbeet Ha yen". 

12mo. 

The discourses before us are worthy of being preserved in a permanent form. 
They were elicited in consequence of the death of a man who had acquired a world- 
wide reputation. In this volume we have truthful delineations, clear conceptions, 
and weighty arguments, and throughout there is a remarkable exemplification of Mr. 
Parker's own words, namely, " I am no flatterer nor public liar general ; when such 
a one is wanted he is easily found, and may be had cheap ; and I cannot treat great 
men like great babies. So, when I preached on Mr. Adams, who had done the cause 
of freedom such great service, on General Taylor and Mr. Webster, I aimed to paint 
them exactly as they were, that their virtues might teach us and their vices warn " 
—Canada Christian Advocate. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CAELTON & POETEE, 

200 Mulberry-street, New York. 

The Christian Maiden. 

Memorials of Eliza Hessel. By Joshua Peiestlet. Slightly 
abridged from the second London edition. 

With a Portrait and Vignette. 12mo. 

Much of the religious biography of the day is both commonplace and insipid. 
There are, however, many choice exceptions, and among such we class the interesting 
memoir before us. Miss Hessel was a young lady who cultivated her mind to the 
utmost, and diffused a cheering influence in the circle in which she moved. Hex 
biography is replete with illustrations of her deep Christian experience, and varied 
and extensive reading. We cordially commend this little book to Christian young 
women, as well calculated to improve the understanding and purify the heart. — 
Christian Guardian. 

The Pioneer Bishop; 

Or, the Life and Times of Feancis Asbtjey. By W. P. Steiok- 
land, D.D. 

12mo. 

One of the most fascinating volumes of biography ever issued from our press.— 
Quarterly Review. 

This is at once a charming volume and a marvelous record. — New York Com- 
mercial Advertiser. 

This book will be read, and will exert a beneficial influence wherever read. 
— Zion's Herald. 

The author has performed his duty well, and with a catholicity of spirit worthy of 
honor.— New York Intelligencer. 

No one can have a just view of the rise and settlement of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in the United States without carefully perusing this book— Dr. Durbin. 

We are glad to find the history of the father of American Methodism from the pen 
of one so competent and fitted for the task.— Northern Advocate. 

Early Methodism 

Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference, from 1788 to 
1828 ; or, the first Forty Years of Wesleyan Evangelism in 
Northern Pennsylvania, Central and Western New York, and 
Canada ; containing Sketches of Interesting Localities, Excit- 
ing Scenes, and Prominent Actors. By Geoege Peok, D.D. 

12mo. 

Many valuable lessons are to be learned from tbe study of those heroic men wno 
followed the sound of the woodman's ax with the "joyful sound" of salvation. 
Their faith, self-denial, undaunted courage, and glorious success will never cease to 
call forth our sincerest admiration, and may still, we trust, stimulate their successors 
to deeds of noble daring. — Christian Guardian. 

It is a well- wrought production, and while important information is communicated 
to the reader, he is attracted forward from page to page, and chapter to chapter, by 
pleasant sketches, stirring scenes, and conspicuous actors.— ReligiovA Herald. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

SOO Mulberry-street, JVew York. 

Whedon's Commentary. 

A Commentary of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Intended 
for Popular Use. By D. D. Whedon, D.D. 
12mo. 

Tbe first volume of this work has been on sale for the past year and a large nurn 
ber of volumes have been sold. It is a 12mo. of 422 closely printed pages, embrac- 
ing a fine map of Palestine, and other valuable illustrations. It is the cheapest book 
for the price that we have issued in many years. The two volumes which are to 
follow will be announced in due time. All the notices we have seen, as well as the 
remarks we have heard, go to the effect that this book is a timely, able, and valua- 
ble addition to our literature. 

Dr. Whedon has furnished the people with the results of critical study, modern 
travels and Christian reflection, in brief and pithy comments on the difficult or ob 
6cure words and phrases in the first two evangelists, enlarging on occasional passages 
of importance. — Congregational Herald. 

It gives the results of patient study and the careful examination of the works of 
those who have preceded him in the same field, in few words well chosen. — Olirist. 
Observer, Phila. 

Dr. Whedon is one of tbe clearest, strongest, and boldest writers in America. 
He addresses the intellect, not the passions ; reason, not the feelings. The principal 
value of this commentary is found in exposition, while its real spiritual utility will 
depend much on the piety of the reader, and hence a boundless field is before him. 
Religious truths are presented in vivid distinctness; the popular mind is instructed. 
—Richmond Christ Acfa. 

So far as we have had opportunity to examine its expositions, we regard the work 
as well executed, and commend it to the Bible student.— Advocate and Guardian. 

Pronouncing Bible. 

Large 8vo. 

We have lately issued the best Bible in print, a Peonounoing Bible, having 
these advantages : 1. The proper names are divided and accented, so that a child can 
pronounce them correctly. 2. Each book has a short introduction, showing just 
what every reader ought to know about it. 3. It has a much improved class of ref- 
erences. 4. It contains a map of Old Canaan and its surroundings, and one of Pal- 
estine, according to the latest discoveries. 

The method is more simple and easy than any other we have seen. The pronun- 
ciation marks are very judiciously confined to the proper names, leaving the re- 
mainder of the text unencumbered. The multitudes of Bible readers who stumble 
at the hard names of people and places may find a very satisfactory relief by using 
this edition. For family worship, or private devotional reading, «fchis edition has 
strong recommendations. — Presbyterian. 

In this Bible the proper names are divided into syllables and accented, so that it is 
hardly possible to mispronounce them. The "Introductions" are brief, but con- 
tain a large amount of useful and necessary information. The "references," as far 
as we have had time to test them, are decidedly the most accurate we have met 
with. It is one of the most beautiful and complete Bibles in the world, and it will 
be an acquisition to the study, the family, the Bible class and the pulpit— Evan- 
gelical Witness. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 
200 Mulberry-Street, New York. 

Harmony of Divine Dispensations. 

Harmony of the Divine Dispensations. Being a Series of Dis- 
courses on Select Portions of Holy Scripture, designed to show 
the Spirituality, Efficacy, and Harmony of the Divine Revelations 
made to Mankind from the Beginning. With Notes, Critical; 
Historical, and Explanatory. By George Smith, F. A. 3., 
Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, of the Royal Society of 
Literature, Fellow of the Genealogical and Historical Society, 
etc., etc. 

8vo., pp. 319. 

This is a new "work, being reprinted from the London edition to corre- 
spond with the "Patriarchal Age," "Hebrew People," and "Gentile 
Nations," by the same distinguished author. It will be sold in connection 
with the others, or separately. It is a profound work, and will have » 
large sale. 

Lady Huntingdon Portrayed. 

Including Brief Sketches of some of her Friends and Co-laborers. 
By the Author of " The Missionary Teacher," " Sketches of Mis- 
sion Life," etc. 

Large 16mo., pp. 319. 

Hibbard on the Psalms. 

The Psalms Chronologically Arranged, with Historical Intro- 
ductions, and a General Introduction to the whole Book. By 
F. G. Hibbard. 
8vo., pp. 589. 



This book occupies an important place in Biblical interpretation, and 
is a valuable contribution to Biblical literature. 

The Object of Life: 

A Narrative Illustrating the Insufficiency of the World, and tb.8 
Sufficiency of Christ. With four Illustrations. 
Large 16mo. 

The Living Way; 

Or, Suggestions and Counsels concerning some of the Privileges 
and Duties of the Christian Life. By Kev. John Atkinson. 
16mo., pp. 139. 



NEW BOOKS JUST PUBLISHED 

BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

JJOO Mulberry-street, New York. 

A NEwlPEoimj^OI^ BffiLE^"' 

In which all the proper names are divided and accented as they 
should be pronounced, and a copious and original selection of 
Eeferences and numerous Marginal Eeadings are given, to- 
gether with Introductions to each Book, and numerous Tables 
and Maps. 

Royal octavo. 
This is the only one in print of the kind, embracing new and im- 
proved maps, new eeferences, and much instruction necessary to a right 
understanding of the Scriptures— proper names divided and accented as 
they are to be pronounced. 

SKETCHES OF 

NEW ENGLAND DIVINES. 

By Eev. D. Sherman. 
12mo. 

Giving true and interesting biographical sketches of the following 
distinguished divines : John Cotton, Richard Mather, Roger Williams, 
Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, Eleazer Mather, John Warham, .Jesse 
Lee, Jonathan Edwards, Elijah Hedding, Timothy Dwight, Wilbur Fisk, 
Ezra Stiles, Lemuel Haynes, Billy Hibbard, Timothy Merritt, Jonathan 
D. Bridge, Nathaniel Emmons, Joshua Crowell, George Pickering, Stephen 
Olin. 

THE CHRISTIAN" LAWYER: 

Being a Portraiture of the Life and Character of William 
George Baker. 

12mo. 

This is a well written memoir, and deserves to he generally read. A 
good holiday gift-book for our legal friends. 

LIFE OE DR. ADAM OLARKeT 

By Eev. J. W. Etheridge, M.A. 
With a Portrait. 12mo. 

The volume contains about five hundred pages, and is ornamented with 
an excellent likeness of its distinguished subject. No one can understand 
fully the great commentator and the secret of his greatness without read- 
ing this book. It should be bought and read through the whole Church, 
and through the whole community. The book should be in every li- 
brary, public and private. The doctor belonged to the whole world. 

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 

And the Final Condition of the Wicked carefully considered. 
By Eev. Eobert W. Landis. 

12mo. 
"As a whole, it is worthy of hi&h praise."— JV. T. Evangelist. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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